| Announcements in Forum : Universities and HE Colleges |
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A note of caution regarding personal information
It's a time of year when many applicants are finding out what accommodation they have been given for their chosen universities and there is an eagerness to exchange contact details with future course mates. Please remember that The Student Room is a publicly visible and searchable forum which means that anyone and everyone can read the details that you post. In the interests of your personal safety and security, TSR and the moderation team strongly recommends you do not post (and we may remove) posts containing:
- Postal addresses, especially room and flat numbers
- E-mail addresses
- mobile phone numbers
If you really want to exchange details, consider using the private message function so that only those you send it to can read it. We also suggest that you are very careful about sharing facebook profile details. You are advised to check your facebook privacy settings to control what people can see about you. For more information, please read our recommendations for staying safe on TSR.
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The Universities forums need new moderators - nominations please!
The role of a moderator is a very proactive one, so alongside dealing with reported posts and items in the moderation queue, the moderator will be expected to take an active role within the forum, reading and responding to threads where possible and keeping a lookout for any rule breaking. The chosen moderator(s) will work with the existing moderation and admin team to improve the Universities section and TSR more generally.
We are looking to recruit moderators for the Applications and UCAS and University Life forums. If you wish to find out more about what this role involves, Potally_Tissed is happy to be contacted by PM to answer questions.
Do you know a user who is active in one or both of these forums, who has been a member on the site for at least three months, and has the right qualities for the job?
Do they:
- Have a keen interest in the forum they are being nominated to moderate?
- Post frequently in this forum?
- Post sensible and useful replies?
- Adhere to the site rules?
- Come across as being friendly and welcoming to new and established users?
If you think you know someone that fits the bill make a post in Moderator Nominations briefly explaining why you think your nomination should be considered.
Self-nominations
We are also collecting self-nominations for this role. If you feel you could fulfil the role described and meet the above criteria, you can also nominate yourself by posting in the Moderator Nominations forum and answering these following questions (as a guide, around 100 words for each is enough):
- Can you tell us why you think you'd make a good moderator?
- What do you think being a moderator involves? What makes a good moderator and what skills and characteristics are useful?
- Have you already done anything to get involved and help out in the section you are nominating yourself for, and also in TSR in general?
- Do you have any ideas to improve or develop the Universities section, or TSR generally?
We are aware that it is exam season at the moment. If you are interested in being considered but are busy with exams, please let us know.
After nominations have closed, those individuals who have been nominated by others may be contacted by the moderation team and invited to answer these questions as well.
Nominations will be collected from now until the end of the day on Monday 20th May. The moderation team will review all nominations received and following discussion, both successful and unsuccessful candidates will be contacted.
Please note that successful candidates must be aged 18 or older, and will be asked to provide brief contact details and to consent to a DBS (CRB) check.
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IMPORTANT: You must wait until midnight (morning exams)/4.30AM (afternoon exams) to discuss Edexcel exams and until 1pm/6pm the following day for STEP and IB exams. Please read before posting, including for rules for practical and oral exams.
Edexcel exams are taken across the world. This means that people in one country might have finished an exam that hasn't even started somewhere else. In order to make the exams as fair as possible (and to discourage cheating), we'll close any threads on Edexcel exams until sufficient time has passed.
This means no discussion AT ALL is permitted - not even "I found it hard/easy", "I dropped my pencil", and could include conveying this via smilies or similar. The line between
- "I found it hard" and
- "I found question 2 hard" and
- "I found question 2 about <insert subject> hard"
is very blurred. What starts as innocent discussion can turn into disclosures of exam content. We're therefore operating a zero tolerance policy on discussing exams:
- For Edexcel: morning exams may not be discussed until midnight (UK time) and afternoon exams until 4:30 AM (UK time). There are different rules in place for Edexcel ICT exams as these can be sat over several weeks.
- For STEP and IB: allow 24 hours to pass from the end of each exam before any discussion.
- Oral exams: No discussion until the end of the exams season.
- Exams from the examination boards AQA, OCR, CCEA, WJEC and CIE (other than orals and practicals) are fine to talk about straight after the exams because these boards are UK based only.
- Applied ICT exams: No discussion is permitted throughout the window during which each exam takes place.
Anyone breaking this rule on TSR will receive a 10 point warning and may be banned from the site.
PLEASE NOTE: this rule applies to any form of discussion, anywhere on the site, including, for example, Private Messages (PMs) as well as posts in threads. Anyone found to be discussing Edexcel, STEP, IB or oral exams via PM before sufficient time has passed will also receive a warning.
Also note:
Once the time restriction has been lifted, discussion of IB exams should take place in the IB forum and discussion of Scottish exams (for which there is no time restriction) should take place in the Scottish qualifications forum.
All other exam discussion should take place in the subject's exam sub-forum in Study Help. If there is no sub-forum for your subject then use the top-level discipline forum (e.g., Arts and Humanities) instead. Please search the forum to first to see if a thread already exists before creating a new one. Thread titles should be as descriptive as possible, stating the level (e.g. GCSE), subject, module, specification (where appropriate), exam board and date of the exam.
Discussion of ICT exams (Edexcel)
Some Edexcel ICT exams are sat over a period of days or weeks. Exam discussion for this subject is not permitted at all until the window has passed. Whilst one candidate may have finished, another may not have started. The AS Applied ICT (6953) exam is sat over a 5-day period. The A2 Applied ICT exams (6957 and 6959) are sat over a 3-week period. Discussion of these exams is not permitted for the duration of the exam season.
Discussion of practical exams
Practical exams in science subjects are taken by different groups of students across an extended period of time. This means that some people will have finished an exam that hasn't even been started by others. In order to make these exams as fair as possible (and to discourage cheating), we'll close any threads requesting specific details of practical exams and remove any posts disclosing specifics.
We realise that you may want to talk about the exams with others once you've completed them, and as such it's acceptable to discuss the practicals on a general level. For example, asking others about the difficulty of the exams as a whole should be fine in most cases. It's also acceptable to ask for general advice prior to sitting an exam, such as on how to draw graphs, experimental techniques or what words mean within questions.
However, either requesting or disclosing the specific questions (or suggested answers) to an exam is not allowed. Anyone breaking this rule is likely to have their post removed and a warning issued. This rule applies to Private Messages (PMs) as well as to posts in threads.
All discussion of practical exams should take place in the subject's exam sub-forum, just for as for written papers. Please search the forum to first to see if a thread already exists before creating a new one. Thread titles should be as descriptive as possible, stating the level (e.g. GCSE), subject, specification (where appropriate) and exam board.
Good luck to everyone sitting exams!
