Dear University of Otago,

I am making an OIA request for a spreadsheet or document containing confirmed grades (the specific grade percentage, not merely the grade letter) for all 2024 semester two and full year 300 and 400 level LAWS papers.

Yours faithfully,
James

Dear UoO - Official Information Act,

Thank you for your reply.

I understand your reply but I am somewhat surprised. Very similar requests have been processed within the ordinary 20-working-day timeframe in the past, despite having been made prior to examination results being made available to students.

To provide several examples:
-Request of October 30 2023 that is essentially the same as my request this year (https://fyi.org.nz/request/24595-laws300...). The response was provided on November 27 2023, with results having been released to students on November 24 2024.
-Request of June 13 2024 that is for essentially the same information as my request, except in relation to semester one (https://fyi.org.nz/request/27247-laws-gr...). The response was provided on July 12 2024, with results having been released to students on 27 June 2024.
-Request of June 9 2023 that is for essentially the same information as my request, except in relation to semester one of last year (https://fyi.org.nz/request/23055-laws300...). The response was provided on July 7 2023, with results having been released to students on 30 June 2023.

I would greatly appreciate it if the request could be processed before the Christmas shutdown and preferably sooner. I note that if the request was made on 22 November when results were released to students, a response would have been due on 20 December. Instead, the extension was made on the last day possible, extending the deadline to almost two and a half months after I originally made my request (and essentially two months after results were released to students). This request is currently "Followed" by 8 people on fyi.org.nz, and is frequently checked by many others, because the grade distributions requested are very useful for students. They are frequently referred to by students in making course decisions and in applying to competitive law-related opportunities (eg internships, graduate roles, judges' clerk positions, student law journal roles, and overseas postgraduate programmes). Therefore, a significant delay in providing a response to this request is highly suboptimal.

I note that the legal obligation on the University is to decide on OIA requests "as soon as reasonably practicable", with the 20-working-day deadline (and extension regime) simply providing a backstop bright line test that reflects the practical difficulty in most cases of a requester applying the former test: see Official Information Act 1982, s 15(1). Given the University has been able to process very similar requests much more promptly in the past (I refer especially to the equivalent request made on October 30 2023), I do not currently believe the "as soon as reasonably practicable" legal obligation would be complied with if the University delays their response to this request until after the Christmas shutdown. I do not particularly want to complain to the Ombudsman, but it is a step I will consider if I believe the University is not complying with its legal obligations.

Yours sincerely,

James

Dear UoO - Official Information Act,

Apologies - to clarify, the request of October 30 2023 was responded to on November 27 2023 (not November 27 2024, as the typo in the reply suggests).

Yours sincerely,

James

Dear UoO - Official Information Act,

Apologies, I have re-read my reply once again. My previous clarification email should have clarified that results in 2023 were released on November 24 2023 (not in 2024). The response was so soon after the results release date that I confused where I had made the typo.

Yours sincerely,

James