GHANA INSTITUTE OF JOURNALISM

IMPORTANT NOTICE
At its meeting held on Tuesday, 14th of April 2020, the Academic Board agreed on
modalities for the completion of the Second Semester of the 2019/2020 Academic
Year, in response to government directives to all universities as part of emergency
response to the precarious situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact
on academic work at the Institute.
The following Academic Board decision is therefore an additional regulation to govern
the conduct of examination for the Second Semester of the 2019/2020 Academic Year
only and does not supersede existing regulations governing teaching, learning and
assessment in the Institution.
1. GRADING OF STUDENTS FOR THE SECOND SEMESTER OF 2019/2020
ACADEMIC YEAR
The final score of a student in a course for the semester shall be 100% and
consist of:
a) An Interim Assessment (IA) of fifteen percent (15%), and Continuous
Assessment (CA) twenty-five percent (25%) constituting a total of forty per
cent (40%) of the overall final course score; and

b) An End-of-Semester Examination of sixty percent (60%) of the overall final

course score.

2. INTERIM ASSESSMENT (IA) AND CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT (CA)

a) The IA and CA shall be the sum total of scores assigned for all applicable
in-class and/or online assignments.

b) That which constitutes an ‘applicable’ in-class and/or online assignment,

shall be determined by the course lecturer in consultation with the Head of
Department (HoD) and duly documented.
c) ‘Applicable’ assignments shall be the same for all students enrolled in a
course, unless under exceptional circumstances, in which case it shall be
determined in consultation with the Head of Department (HoD) and duly
documented.
 In a situation where a student is unable to submit a designated ‘applicable’
assignment for a good reason, the student shall either be given the opportunity
to submit same or the course lecturer shall use another verifiable equivalent
‘applicable’ assignment already done by the student but not used in computing
scores for the IA, CA or SE.

3. END-OF-SEMESTER EXAMINATIONS (SEs)

a. The Institute shall provide an examination timetable to all registered and/or

eligible students of the Institute and all eligible students shall abide by it.
b. There shall be a reasonable revision time (3 weeks) allocated to students
before the commencement of the examinations. This is to enable students
clarify any issues and allow those who may have missed some online
activities to catch up.
c. The examination timetable shall be made available to eligible students at a
reasonable time through every practicable means.
d. The SEs shall be individually completed examinations by each student
registered for a specific course.
e. It is acknowledged that the course content and focus (objectives) of the
various courses may vary from course to course thereby requiring some
relative flexibility in the nature of questions students would be required to
answer. Consequently, the following types of questions may be
administered in the examinations:
 Essay type questions for the student to answer at most 2 questions
out of 4 or 5 questions. The student may have up to 24 hours from
the time of the examination to submit the work via a designated
means to be indicated or approved by the Institute/HoD;
 A term paper on a topic of the course taken and approved by the
HoD to be given and retrieved within a time frame indicated in
consultation with and approved by the HOD;
 Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs) shall be taken within a 12-hour
period from the time the paper is scheduled. Each examination, using
MCQs, should carry a maximum of 60 questions to be completed in
a maximum of 1 hour 30 minutes. The 12-hour window for MCQ
papers implies that students may log in at different times depending
on their circumstances within the 12 hours after the scheduled
commencement of that paper and submit the work based on the time
allocated for the paper from the time they logged in. Submission shall
be done electronically via a designated means to be indicated or
approved by the Institute/HoD; and
 For some practical courses, the students could be asked to present a
self-recorded video of up to 8 minutes for examination, which shall
 be submitted within a determined time frame and through a means
that shall be indicated or approved by the Institute/HoD.
f. Group work and real-time video/audio formats shall NOT be used in the
examinations.
g. Examination questions shall be specific to each course and require the
student to apply course concepts and/or theories or synthesize course
materials in given situations/contexts.

4. ONLINE EXAMINATION REGULATION

Regulations governing examinations within the Institute shall apply.

In addition, it shall be an offence to:

a. collaborate with other students;

b. seek help from other students’; and
c. utilize the services of tutors or other persons paid or unpaid.

This list is not exhaustive. In essence any practices that can be deemed to
be dishonest and seeking to give a student an unfair advantage in the
examination process shall be considered a breach.

5. The examination paper shall be written and submitted online within the
specified scheduled time as directed by the HoD/course lecturer.

6. CAPSTONE PROJECTS FOR DIPLOMA STUDENTS/DISSERTATION FOR

UNDERGRADUATES AND POSTGRADUATES
a) All undergraduate projects shall be converted to term papers of about 4000-
5000 words on an aspect of the project or research cycle, which shall be
graded out of 100%.

b) Masters’ dissertation should also be converted to a long essay of about

7000-8000 words and graded out of 100%. Specific content details of the
various projects and other related regulations shall be communicated to
supervisors and students in due course by the Head of Research. The
current COVID-19 situation implies that students shall not be made to
engage in any data collection related activities that could undermine the
directive to stay at home and/or observe social distancing directives.

7. RESPONSIBILITY OF STUDENTS

Students are advised to:

a) Regularly check the Institute’s website and approved class online platforms
for information.
 b) Acquaint themselves with the revised portion of the 2019/20 academic
calendar for students (see item 8)

c) Ensure that they are duly registered with the GIJ Academic Affairs Registry,
for the Academic Year or immediately contact the designated course
lecturer(s) for any issues to be rectified.

d) Provide all necessary tools, material/facility that is required for the online
examination.

e) Follow all instructions accompanying each question paper.

f) Sit for and complete the examinations and upload or submit the work as
instructed and within the specified time frame.

g) Where there is no access to a computer and/or the internet, the student

shall immediately notify the course lecturer or HoD before the duration for
submitting the work elapses. In such cases, the student will have to provide
the official registered full name and identification number and follow the
instructions that will be provided on how to the paper is to be written and
submitted.

8. REVISED ACADEMIC CALENDAR FOR THE SECOND SEMESTER OF

THE 2019/2020 ACADEMIC YEAR ( STUDENT COPY)
ACTIVITY PROPOSED TIMELINE
Wednesday, 15th April,
Easter Break/Mid-Semester Break Thursday, 9th April, 2020
2020
Lectures End th
Thursday, 30 April, 2020
Revision Period st
Friday, 1 May, 2020 Sunday, 24th May, 2020
End-of-Semester Examination
Monday, 25th May, 2020 Friday, 12th June, 2020
Begins
Students Go Down Friday, 12th June, 2020
Thursday, 27th August,
Long Vacation Period Sunday, 12th June, 2020
2020
Release of Second Semester
TO BE COMMUNICATED
Examination Results
CONGREGATION TO BE COMMUNICATED
Registration for the first semester
of 2020/2021 Academic Year Thursday, 27th August, 2020
begins

MANAGEMENT