Requesting Exams Scripts (1 Viewer)

dp624

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
2,326
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
So, I'm about to send this away. I was just thinking of the most proper way to word the application.

me121 send me a PM about how he said
me121 said:
some more advice, be specific in what you ask for. (i think the line I used was "I request access to document(s) concerning:...My examination responses (scripts) for all written external examination papers attempted....")
I assume then that this sentence would be sufficient for me?
FoI application said:
I request access to document(s) concerning:...My examination responses (scripts) for all written external examination papers attempted by XXXXX XXXX (student number XXXXXXXX)
Would that be enough or should I write more?

Also, I assume that I will say that the documents contain information about my personal affairs?

And for the forms of access. Yes/Yes/No in that order I presume?

Thanks.
 

James Cos

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
45
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
Just to keep you guys updated on progress, this is the attachment to the FOI application I will post later today.

Application for access under the Freedom of Information Act 1989 (NSW) ss 17, 35 – Attachment
I request access to documents concerning: –
1. My examination responses (scripts) for all written external examination papers attempted by me (James Chun Man SIN, student number: 17519158) in the Higher School Certificate in 2008 (Economics, English (Advanced) Papers 1 and 2, English Extension 1, French Continuers, French Extension, Mathematics, Mathematics Extension 1, Philosophy Distinction Course) and in 2007 (Agriculture Papers 1 and 2); and
2. All sound recordings of my oral examinations in French Continuers and French Extension; and
3. All comments or notes that may have been recorded by markers in respect of my two oral examinations in French Continuers and French Extension; and
4. The school assessment marks submitted by my school to the Board of Studies for each course attempted in 2008 and 2007; and
5. My completed Illness/Misadventure Appeal Form for Economics, Mathematics Extension 1 and English Extension 1, including all comments made by the presiding officer and by my school; and
6. Details of any enquiries made or notes recorded in respect of determining my Illness/Misadventure Appeals in the three courses concerned; and
7. The aligned Examination Mark for Economics that would have been reported to me had my Illness/Misadventure Appeal not been successful.
 

Lazarus

Retired
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
5,965
Location
CBD
Gender
Male
HSC
2001
dp624 said:
I assume then that this sentence would be sufficient for me?
Yes. Specify "HSC" examination papers. Include your student number.

dp624 said:
Also, I assume that I will say that the documents contain information about my personal affairs?
Yes, because they're particular to you.

dp624 said:
And for the forms of access. Yes/Yes/No in that order I presume
Yes to copy, no to others.

You should also be entitled to a 50% rebate if you're still a minor. :)

James Cos said:
Just to keep you guys updated on progress, this is the attachment to the FOI application I will post later today.
Suggest a few minor changes - unless you've already posted. :)

Application for access under the Freedom of Information Act 1989 (NSW) ss 17, 35 – Attachment
I request access to documents concerning: –
1. My examination responses (scripts) for all written external examination papers attempted by me (James Chun Man SIN, student number: 17519158) in the Higher School Certificate in 2008 (Economics, English (Advanced) Papers 1 and 2, English Extension 1, French Continuers, French Extension, Mathematics, Mathematics Extension 1, Philosophy Distinction Course) and in 2007 (Agriculture Papers 1 and 2); and
2. All sound recordings of my oral examinations in French Continuers and French Extension; and
3. All comments or notes that may have been recorded by markers in respect of my two oral examinations in French Continuers and French Extension; and
4. The school assessment marks submitted by my school to the Board of Studies for each course attempted in 2008 and 2007; and
5. My completed Illness/Misadventure Appeal Form for Economics, Mathematics Extension 1 and English Extension 1, including all comments made by the presiding officer and by my school; and
6. Details of any enquiries made or notes recorded in respect of determining which refer or relate to the determination of my Illness/Misadventure Appeals in the three courses concerned; and
7. The aligned Examination Mark for Economics that would have been reported to me had my Illness/Misadventure Appeal not been successful.
 

James Cos

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
45
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
Acknowledgement rec'd from the OBOS today - letter was dated 13 Jan, so i expect they must respond by 3 Feb (amirite?).

Interestingly, the letter referred only to my request for "examination responses", when this was only one of the seven items I requested.

I gave Stephen Parkes (the FOI Coordinator whose signature was printed at the bottom of the letter) a call, and informed him that the letter did not refer to the other six items i requested. He advised me that everything was okay and that my request in its entirety would be processed in the prescribed period.

The wording of the letter to me makes one wonder if they're just using a form letter. If that's the case, it might mean they are getting a sizeable number of requests for scripts?
 

Lazarus

Retired
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
5,965
Location
CBD
Gender
Male
HSC
2001
The timeframe for determining the application is 21 days after which the agency is deemed to have refused the application: s 24(2) FOI Act, but it must be dealt with as soon as practicable: s 18(3) FOI Act.

The period of time for determination is reckoned exclusive of the day on which the application is received: s 36(1) Interpretation Act 1987 (NSW), so the clock starts ticking from 14 Jan.

Accordingly, the last day on which the application could be determined is Tuesday 3 Feb. This is an ordinary business day so none of the public holiday issues arise: s 36(2) Interpretation Act 1987 (NSW).

However, even if the application is determined on that day, you may not receive notice of it until sometime later. If notice of the determination is mailed to you on that day, you will be deemed to have received it on the fourth working day after it was mailed to you unless in fact you received it earlier: s 76(1)(b) Interpretation Act 1987 (NSW). This is essentially a grace period for Australia Post.

The fourth working day after Tuesday 3 Feb is Monday 9 Feb. In practice, you can't presume to know whether the application has been determined until then.

As an aside, there doesn't appear to be any section in the FOI Act which actually imposes an obligation on the agency to notify you of its determination. That situation could presumably be resolved by informally approaching the agency to query whether the application had been determined, and if it had, requesting notice of the determination.

Alternatively notification might be seen as part and parcel of the determination process and an obligation to notify implied by the section which imposes the obligation to determine.

All of that just to determine a date. :) Isn't law great!

In relation to form letters - it's likely that they're using one, as they've done this in the past - it only took five or six applications for raw marks before they started refusing them with stock reasons. I don't think any inferences about the number of applicants can safely be drawn from the use of a form letter.

We'll find out soon enough anyway, either by people posting on the site, or later in the year when the Board publishes its annual report with statistics of FOI applications (which show an increasing trend from 2003, lol).
 

Lazarus

Retired
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
5,965
Location
CBD
Gender
Male
HSC
2001
Good idea calling up Stephen Parkes too. Best to nip those things in the bud before they become problematic.

He seems to be the one who is dealing with all FOI applications at the moment heh. Lucky him!
 

dp624

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
2,326
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
I received today acknowledgement on their receipt of my letter from OBOS.

letter said:
I refer to your application requesting information under the NSW Freedom of Information Act (FOI Act) regarding examination responses (scripts) from the 2008 Higher School Certificate (HSC) Examinations

I will advise you of the result of your application pursuant to the FOI Act in due course

Yours Sincerely,

Stephen Parkes,
FOI Coordinator
It was dated the 15th Jan
 

James Cos

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
45
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
Some light bedtime reading for you, James, attached...

Rec'd notice of determination of my application today in the mail.

Access to scripts and sound recordings was refused. Rationale is interesting and weighs heavily on information found on this site. Please find attachment.

Let's see where we can take this. =)
 

lyounamu

Reborn
Joined
Oct 28, 2007
Messages
9,989
Gender
Male
HSC
N/A
Re: Some light bedtime reading for you, James, attached...

Rec'd notice of determination of my application today in the mail.

Access to scripts and sound recordings was refused. Rationale is interesting and weighs heavily on information found on this site. Please find attachment.

Let's see where we can take this. =)
It's interesting how they found about how you were associated with the website (besides, your current account barely has any posts in it!). They do seem to have their people viewing the website constantly.

James, do you know how I can apply for my own mark too? (i.e. I want to know the rough format). I want to have a go whether I can do something about that. (asking for my maths results)
 
Last edited:

dp624

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
2,326
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
Re: Some light bedtime reading for you, James, attached...

Oh damn, there goes $30 down the drain... pity.
Somewhat annoying. It's good that at least this subforum is hidden, otherwise ... bleh.

Lot of legal blabber though
 

Lazarus

Retired
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
5,965
Location
CBD
Gender
Male
HSC
2001
Very interesting.

I'll post my determination during the week when I have access to a scanner. Most of it is identical to yours, James.

They have obviously read DP's post about self-marking scripts. I am surprised to see them concede that this could be used as a method for determining cut-offs. Estimates of cut-offs seem to worry them just as much as the actual cut-offs.

Sorry for my silence - I've been incredibly busy myself. One thing that has consumed a lot of my time over the past week is an idea that I had which might allow us to outflank the Board and determine cut-offs ourselves.

Schools have access to raw internal assessment marks as well as the final aligned assessment marks. The internal marks are moderated and then aligned. I think that, using the raw marks and the aligned marks as anchor points, it is possible to derive the intermediate marks and thus the cut-offs used to align them.

Marks from a few different moderating groups (i.e. schools) might be needed, but because the cut-offs are the same for all schools, I think it can be done. I am in the midst of writing a technical paper on this and intend to submit it as part of my own FOI reply to the Board.

I also think it is time to launch phase 2 of the grand master plan.

(I don't really have phases mapped out, just ideas, but I think the 'army of HSC students lodging free requests which result in reviews by the privacy commissioner' would make for a good phase 2.)

See attachment.

DP, have you heard back from UAC? If not I think a reminder/query letter should be sent.
 

dp624

Active Member
Joined
Oct 16, 2008
Messages
2,326
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
Ah, no, I have not heard back at all from UAC, haha. Should they have replied already? Since I have not heard back from the Board of Studies yet (expecting the same reply as James Cos) and I sent both letters on the same day, perhaps I shall hear of it next week. If not, I'll drop a query or reminder.

Pity that the Board stalks these forums so much... if it hadn't been for that one thread, we might have gotten away with it. But it's still a bit suspicious that three people from the same school applied for their scripts (with the same wording as me121 I guess).

I think I could approach my school vice-principal (former coordinator) for the raw data (James Cos can help me here I suppose) but I'm sure it'd have to be without the name and so on.
 

James Cos

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
45
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
Sorry for my silence - I've been incredibly busy myself. One thing that has consumed a lot of my time over the past week is an idea that I had which might allow us to outflank the Board and determine cut-offs ourselves.

Schools have access to raw internal assessment marks as well as the final aligned assessment marks. The internal marks are moderated and then aligned. I think that, using the raw marks and the aligned marks as anchor points, it is possible to derive the intermediate marks and thus the cut-offs used to align them.

Marks from a few different moderating groups (i.e. schools) might be needed, but because the cut-offs are the same for all schools, I think it can be done. I am in the midst of writing a technical paper on this and intend to submit it as part of my own FOI reply to the Board.
I don't really understand how getting raw internal assessment marks can help us determine raw band cut-offs. Can you please explain?

OBOS sent me a printout of the assessment marks submitted by my school - but where's the relationship to raw marks?
 

Lazarus

Retired
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
5,965
Location
CBD
Gender
Male
HSC
2001
I'll explain by way of example.

Assume that at a particular school, for a particular course, all of the students are placed in the same performance band (e.g. Band 6).

= raw internal assessment marks
= initial moderated assessment marks
= aligned assessment marks

Their raw assessment marks are moderated via the non-linear transformation:



with , and determined from the distribution of raw examination marks for this moderating group (which is not known).

The initial moderated assessments are then aligned via a linear transformation:



with and determined from the raw cut-offs set by the Board.

(The same and are also used to align the raw examination marks, for this and all groups.)

Now, substituting for y:




The above relationship holds for any individual pair. So, for all and :



As and are known (by the school), we can create a system of linear equations in three unknowns (, and ).

In matrix notation:



where the columns of the first matrix are simply the coefficients of the linear equations above for three particular .

The fact that , and can be calculated directly but not the individual variables reflects the range of possible distributions of raw examination marks for this group.

In other words, for every distribution of moderated marks produced by applying particular , and to the , there exist and such that the calculated from the are the same as the real aligned assessment marks.

This only means that one moderating group isn't enough to determine the cut-offs.

But I think that if you had pairs from, say, two or three schools, it would be possible to deduce and , and thus the cut-offs. In that situation you can hold and constant between the schools.

This is where I'm currently up to anyway. :)
 

Lazarus

Retired
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
5,965
Location
CBD
Gender
Male
HSC
2001
Ah, no, I have not heard back at all from UAC, haha. Should they have replied already? Since I have not heard back from the Board of Studies yet (expecting the same reply as James Cos) and I sent both letters on the same day, perhaps I shall hear of it next week. If not, I'll drop a query or reminder.
Alright, let's wait and see whether anything happens next week.

I think I could approach my school vice-principal (former coordinator) for the raw data (James Cos can help me here I suppose) but I'm sure it'd have to be without the name and so on.
Good to know - I certainly have no interest in keeping the data identifiable - but let me make sure my method will actually work first. :)

It seems like it has potential, but I'm not convinced just yet. Needs further analysis.
 

James Cos

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
45
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
james, what course of action do you recommend in relation to our FOI apps for exam scripts?

as regards the "free" letter, i think it's a great idea. i haven't yet sent it but i will be glad to. i think we can get at least some jrahs people to send them too. not too certain though.
 

Lazarus

Retired
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
5,965
Location
CBD
Gender
Male
HSC
2001
Which parts of your application do you want to pursue? Just the exam scripts, or the lot?
 

James Cos

Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2009
Messages
45
Gender
Male
HSC
2008
Which parts of your application do you want to pursue? Just the exam scripts, or the lot?
well the only parts they have refused in full are the exam scripts and the oral exam tapes - these i would like to pursue

not really concerned about their blocking out the name of the presiding officer on the I/M form lol
 

Lazarus

Retired
Joined
Jul 6, 2002
Messages
5,965
Location
CBD
Gender
Male
HSC
2001
Sorry, I thought I recalled there being other refusals.

OK. BOS is concerned that you're going to determine raw cut-offs from them.

You can seek to show either:

(a) that disclosure of raw cut-offs is not contrary to the public interest; or

(b) that there is no practicable way to determine raw cut-offs from the documents requested.

The first won't get you anywhere except to the tribunal, and I'm already in the middle of a spat with them about that.

The second might allow you to get some (if not all) documents without going to the tribunal.

Here is what I think you should do - subject to the time you are willing to spend on this.

Draft a response requesting an internal review of their decision, enclosing the fee of $40.

In your response:

1. First point out that the marking guidelines haven't been published and at this point in time it is not possible to even try to self-mark your scripts. (Easily rebutted but also an easy point to make.)

2. For each course in respect of which you have requested a script or tape:

- download the 2007 marking guidelines

- find a page of the marking guidelines which differentiates between mark ranges by using incredibly vague words such as "Describes a highly-developed understanding" vs "Describes a well-developed understanding"

- annex these pages to your response

3. In your response, explain that it is quite impossible for teachers (let alone students) to ascribe any meaning to the difference between (say) "highly-developed" and "well-developed", and that it follows that it is not possible for anyone to mark the question except the Board's own markers.

4. Accordingly, as you can't mark the question, you can't determine your raw mark and you can't get the cut-offs.

5. Also explain that there is no correspondence between mark ranges in the marking guidelines for extended response questions and the published performance descriptors - e.g. for an english essay there might be mark ranges of 13-15, 10-12, 7-9, 4-6, 1-3, but they don't equate to bands, so even if you have a mark in the 10-12 range you have no idea whether this is a band 5 mark or not. (Strictly speaking this is not relevant but I think it bolsters the general theme of your response which is "we can't self mark because it's too bloody hard").

6. You may have to concede in respect of maths scripts. I think they are the only papers that really can be self-marked. Andrew Harvey's (public) effort is evidence of that. But you should be able to get everything else.

Happy to review any drafts you write and provide feedback etc.

Will likely have more ideas now that this is ticking over in the back of my mind.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top