Year one maths papers

The request was refused by University of Nottingham.

Dear University of Nottingham,

I request all held maths exam papers(for a maths G100 course) in year one of the course, dating back as far as held.

Yours faithfully,

James Lambert

Br-Freedom-Of-Information, University of Nottingham

Dear James,

Thank you for your request for information regarding G100 papers. Your request was received on 14th September 2020 and is being dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The reference number of your request is 3943.

We will aim to respond to your request within twenty working days. Please note this is calculated from the following working day from receipt of your request.

Please be aware that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and following Government advice, the University has moved to online teaching and all staff are working remotely, this may mean that access to some information held locally or on certain systems may not be readily available at this time.

Where it becomes clear that the information you have requested is not available due to the current situation, we will of course write to you and advise you of this.

I hope that this is of help. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any enquiries regarding this email.

Yours sincerely

Catherine Allin

Information Compliance & Quality Officer – Freedom of Information,
Registrar’s Department
Web: www.nottingham.ac.uk/freedom-of-informat...
Email: [University of Nottingham request email]

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Dear Br-Freedom-Of-Information,

May I remind you that this request is now overdue and you are in violation of both FOI law and your own policies stated in the initial response. Please fulfill the request promptly.

Yours sincerely,

James Lambert

Br-Freedom-Of-Information, University of Nottingham

2 Attachments

Dear James ,

Thank you for your email,

As outlined in our response below, the 20 working days starts on the day after your request is received, meaning the deadline is the 13th of October, however thank you for your comments they have been duly noted.

You requested-

I request all held maths exam papers(for a maths G100 course) in year one of the course, dating back as far as held.

We have considered your request under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and on this occasion we are unable to provide you with the information you have outlined above.

Upon review, we believe that this information is exempt from disclosure under Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 as the information would be likely to prejudice the commercial interests of the University of Nottingham.
The legislation states:

43 Commercial interests.

(1)Information is exempt information if it constitutes a trade secret.

(2)Information is exempt information if its disclosure under this Act would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding it).

(3)The duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, compliance with section 1(1)(a) would, or would be likely to, prejudice the interests mentioned in subsection (2).

The public interest in disclosing this information and has determined that the prejudice arising from disclosure outweighs the benefit to the public, indeed we believe there is no legitimate wider public interest in the content of our examination papers.

In releasing these papers, we will prejudice the University of Nottingham’s ability to reuse the past questions in any future examinations. This would incur a direct cost in staff time for preparing and checking new questions.

Releasing this information into the public domain means it could be used by our competitors in setting their examinations, as you must appreciate the University is working in a competitive environment against other higher education providers.

However, we would like to stipulate that our own students have access to three example exam question papers, and model answers per module to help them with their studies.

A Public Interest test has been undertaken, and a copy is attached.

If you are unhappy with the way in which your request has been handled and wish to request a review of our response or to make a complaint, then please see the attached information sheet and form.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any enquiries regarding this email.

Yours sincerely

Catherine Allin

Information Compliance & Quality Officer – Freedom of Information,
Registrar’s Department
Web: www.nottingham.ac.uk/freedom-of-informat...
Email: [University of Nottingham request email]

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