At the end of the semester

Registering for a course is linked with registering for the corresponding examination (implicit examination registration). However, during the semester, students can again withdraw from an examination in STiNE if they observe the following Department of Social Sciences withdrawal deadlines:

• The withdrawal from an in-person written examination or a take-home examination is possible up to 72 hours before the examination time. In the case of take-home examinations, the examination time is the time when the students are given the examinations.
• The withdrawal from a term paper, project, etc. is possible up to the last day of the lecture period (always until 11:59 pm)

After the end of these deadlines, examination registration is binding. It is not possible to withdraw later.

• Semester dates

To create an examination list (e.g., for written examinations), click on “Prüfungen” in the menu on the left. Here, all your courses and their examination formats will be displayed.

Click on the desired examination (e.g., “Hausarbeit”) and then on “Teilnehmerliste drucken.” On the page now displayed, you will receive a list of all participants registered for the examination. If necessary, click on “Drucken.”

If you are unable to locate a student on the examination list, contact the examination management staff member responsible.

• Contacting examination management staff

Submitting term papers, project work, and essays

Until further notice, students cannot hand in or send their term papers, project work, or essays to the Social Sciences Academic Office in Max-Brauer-Allee; rather, they must email their work as a PDF attachment to their course instructor directly. If the course instructor wants the written work in paper form, they must provide an address in the commentaries of their course.

In the case of term papers, project work, and essays, only one examination date will be provided. The date (the submission date) should be entered in the annotated course catalog under “Zusätzliche Hinweise zu Prüfungen.”

If students are unable to meet the submission deadline for a written assignment due to illness or other reasons that were beyond their control, they are advised to first inform the respective course instructor and agree an extension of the submission deadline for the assignment. If this is not possible, students can submit an application for an extension deadline to the examinations board by using the form “Fristverlängerung Hausarbeit.”

• Application for deadline extension for term paper

Grading deadlines

According to Section 15 subsection 1 of the examination regulations, term papers and project work must be graded within 4 weeks after the respective examination date.

Priority grading of examinations for international students    

To ensure that the academic office can produce a transcript promptly, teaching staff is asked to prioritize the grading of examinations of Erasmus+ and other international students.

Plagiarism software

Universität Hamburg provides teaching staff with software to check for plagiarism:

• Turnitin Originality Checker

Examination dates

Two dates must be offered for each written examination. Students can choose between the first and second examination date.

Examination booklet and form for multiple-choice examinations

For in-person examinations, the Social Sciences Academic Office will provide bound written-examination papers (examination booklet, 14 pages, A4 lined, one cover page, one back cover). Do not write the grade on (or only on) the perforated cover page but rather directly under the examination—the cover page will be used to confirm receipt of graded written examinations when distributed by teaching staff or the academic office help desk. The academic office will provide an A3 form as a cover for multiple-choice written examinations.

Make an appointment with the degree program coordinator responsible for your degree program in good time to receive the written-examination booklets and forms.

• Contacting degree program coordination

Grading deadlines

According to Section 15 subsection 1 of the examination regulations, written examinations must be graded within 4 weeks after the respective examination date.

Correction assistance

If budgetary funds are available (inquire at the office!), students in higher semesters can be deployed to preliminarily correct examinations according to an evaluation scheme specified by the teacher under certain conditions. Note that correction assistants may be entrusted with preliminarily correcting exams only once a contract has been concluded. Find further information and forms under the following link.

• Staff Service Portal

A take-home examination consists of a written response to a specific question that the student works on for a short period of time at home, using aids.

Working time can range from 60 to 240 minutes. The examiner will announce the specific duration of the examination at the beginning of the course. The examiner may also establish guidelines for the scope of work.

Tasks for a take-home examination will be given in person or in electronic form. Students will be informed of the distribution of the assignment and the submission deadline in advance. The period between the distribution of the assignment and the submission deadline may exceed the specified completion time. As per the examination regulations, students must confirm that they have completed the assignment on their own and without using any tools or resources beyond those listed.

On the Universität Hamburg e-learning portal, find additional information about take-home examinations as well as tips and instructions on the technical implementation of take-home examinations, for example, in OpenOLAT.

• Universität Hamburg’s e-learning portal: Take-home examinations

Enter grades in the STiNE portal under the menu item “Prüfungen.” There, you can select the relevant examination for which you must enter the grade. When entering the grade, you must differentiate between the grade, on the one hand, and examination or course absence, on the other.

If a student is absent from an examination that they registered for, you must tick “Abwesend” in the column. Once you have saved your entry, a “5.0” or “n” (not passed) and “fehlt” will be displayed in STiNE.

Make an entry in the examination list in STiNE for all students who are registered for an examination. Therefore, make one of the following entries for each examination participant: the grade, “pass” or “fail” (depending on the grading system), or “absent.”

In hardship cases, if you wish to accept a paper that has been submitted after the deadline and after you have released the grades, you can do so; however, you will no longer be able to enter the grade in STiNE yourself. In such cases, notify the examination management staff at the academic office so that the grade can be entered there.

• Contacting examination management staff

As a rule, the system permits grades according to the bachelor’s and master’s examination regulations (1.0, 1.3, 1.7, 2.0, and so forth up to 4.0 for passed examinations or 5.0). Exception: Some courses are graded only with “pass” or “fail.”

After entering the grades, click “Save” to complete the entry.

Once you have entered the grades, you must release them in STiNE so that they are visible to the students under “Prüfungsergebnisse.” You can release the grades either for all examination participants at the same time or for individual students, for example, after correcting a term paper. Do this by clicking on the red “Freigeben” button at the top of the STiNE window once you have entered the grade. A window with all graded students will appear. You can now tick the boxes for individual participants and then release the grades by clicking the “Markierte freigeben” button.

You must enter an iTAN to release final grades. Once the grades have been released, you can no longer change or correct them yourself.

Here you will find detailed

• instructions for entering notes
  • >Service >Anleitungen >Prüfungen verwalten

Printing examination list

You should print the grade list for your own records. You do not need to provide the academic office with the grade list.

Once the grades have been released in STiNE, you can no longer change or correct them yourself. To make changes or further corrections at a later date, you can do so only through the academic office. To do this, contact the examination management staff responsible in writing (email is sufficient).

• Contacting examination management staff

At present, the Social Sciences Academic Office can return graded examination papers to students in return for a certificate of receipt only if (a) the printed examination paper has been handed in to the lecturer or (b) a written examination has been conducted in person. It is not possible for the academic office to return graded digital examinations. If the examinations are to be handed out by the Social Sciences Academic Office, this must be indicated in the course comments (notes on examinations) in STiNE.

Be aware of the following when forwarding corrected hard-copy examination documents to the academic office (by post or in person) for the purpose of returning to students:

• Graded and annotated term papers and written examinations must be submitted in full for each examination date (no partial deliveries).
• Term papers and written examinations are to be sorted alphabetically by student last name.

Do not inform students immediately after forwarding the documents to the academic office that their written examination or term paper can be collected from the academic office. Instead, refer your students to the following academic office web page so that they do not come to us in vain:

• Examination documents ready for collection

Examination results for bachelor’s and master’s students must always be entered in STiNE. Master’s and Diplom students, on the other hand, require a course completion certificate.

You can download the form for a blank course completion certificate.

In principle, any teaching staff in the field of the respective degree program can serve as examiner of a final thesis. The legal basis and subject-specific provisions for the final examination can be found on the website of the respective degree program:

• Final theses

Upon request, the examination board for the respective degree program may admit supervisors who are not university lecturers or who are external lecturers (i.e., lecturers from other faculties at Universität Hamburg or other universities). Research associates may be admitted as examiners for final examinations in individual cases after approval by the responsible examinations board if the topic of a final thesis relates to the subject matter of individual courses or the associated modules. In principle, adjunct lecturers cannot act as examiners for final theses.

Changing the title of the final thesis

Once the thesis has been registered, changes, additions (e.g., subheadings), can generally no longer be made. However, the respective examinations board may allow exceptions in special cases upon application by the student (submitted via the examiners). Such applications should be emailed by the student directly to the respective examination management staff for approval by the chair of the examinations board after consultation with the examiners (consent of the examiners attached). The chair of the examinations board sends the approval or rejection by email to the student, the examination management staff, and the examiners. 

• Contacting examination management staff

Every change of title (even the subtitle) must be recorded in the student’s file through the academic office. This is the only way to ensure that the correct final-thesis title appears on the degree certificate.

Section 31: Quality Management and Legal Affairs has prepared a handout on how teaching staff and supervisors should deal with suspected cases of cheating or deception: 

• Handout No. 15: Cheating in Examinations