Headlines

A five will be a fail; a six will be a pass. If the UniversityBoard has anything to do with it, decimal points and tenths ofdecimal points will no longer feature in the assessment of testsand examinations. According to the Board, such a measure isnecessary to remove the existing inequalities betweenundergraduates in different faculties. The Board is asking all thedeans to implement a uniform system of assessment for all newundergraduates, starting next academic year. This will prevent thetype of situation in which a student from Faculty A fails with amark of 5.49, while another student from Faculty B passes with thesame mark for the same test. "With the increase in the number ofjoint degree courses and umbrella programs for students fromdifferent faculties, there is a need for streamlining", accordingto the Board.

Quality control

The system of periodic external inspections of universities andcolleges of higher education is working properly and any weak spotsare being remedied effectively. The Netherlands National AuditOffice ('de Rekenkamer') reaches this conclusion in its report onquality control in higher education. This public sector auditingagency wanted to know whether the system of external inspections,organised by the institutions themselves, enables the government tomonitor the quality of higher education sufficiently. The answerappears to be in the affirmative.

Weather forecasting

Seven students of Meteorology and Oceanography at UtrechtUniversity have in the past few months participated in theso-called European Weather Challenge, a weather forecasting contestin which twenty-two professional and amateur weather forecastingteams were pitted against each other. The Utrecht student team hadto face forecasting services such as Meteo Consult and the GermanMeteoFax Wetterdienst, which came first and second respectively inthe contest. During a period of three months, the participants hadto make twelve forecasts based on Internet data, predicting theweather conditions at eight weather stations in Europe. They wereasked to interpret the data and forecast the amount ofprecipitation at the relevant station during weekends, as well asthe maximum and minimum temperatures. The Utrecht team finishedseventh, but confidently expect at least a fourth place nextyear.