Please Find Enclosed Informal Guidelines, Which Are Intended to Help You Prepare for Assessment

- 1 -Informal Guidelines for Boards of Examiners and Related Processes – 2012/13 Academic Year

Assessment Committees

Functions

• Assessment Committees consider marks achieved within modules and assign unalterable marks for students who have taken those modules. (ARRA 4.1)
• Every module for which a School is responsible must be considered by an Assessment Committee within that School. (ARRA 5.1)
• For each module, the committee must review the performance of every one of the students registered for it - regardless of the home School of the students or the course for which they are registered. (ARRA 5.1)
• Assessment Committees may not consider or make any decisions on progression or award. (ARRA 5)
• Assessment Committees may not take into account any extenuating circumstances presented by or on behalf of a student: these will be considered by the relevant Extenuating Circumstances Sub-Committee who will make a recommendation to the Board of Examiners. (ARRA 5.6)
• The Module External Examiner is a member of the Assessment Committee and should be invited to the meeting. If they cannot attend, their concurrence with the outcomes of the Assessment Committee meeting must be obtained before any Board of Examiners meeting makes use of those outcomes, however, no formal approval is required if they are absent.(EE 2.2/11)
• Marks may be scaled, provided this has the approval of the External Examiner for that module, however, the systematic normalisation of marks is not permitted. (ARRA 5.4)

Timing (see also theChecklist of dates related to assessment)

• Where students from other areas have taken modules within the administering School, the relevant Assessment Committees should meet and all marks be agreed in SAINT by the deadline of Friday 14th June 2013. Only if no other areas are reliant on confirmed marks can marks be agreed in SAINT outside the deadline.
• The timely agreement of confirmed marks by Assessment Committees is of paramount importance to the efficient running of the assessment process. It is the responsibility of School offering the module to ensure that the relevant information is processed in sufficient time to enable other areas to access this in preparation for their Board of Examiner meetings.
• All Assessment Committees should have met and marks agreed in SAINT by the end of 12th July 2013.

Information Required

• The names of those entitled to attend as listed in ARRA 4.2. It is important that a full complement of academic staff attend, as set out in the QAA Code of Practice on the Assessment of Students. At present there is no quorum for Assessment Committees but it is the responsibility of the Chair of the Committee to ensure that the Committee is in possession of all the information it needs to make a decision. The Chair can take appropriate action if it was not, ie postpone the meeting or record Decision Deferred in respect of student(s).
• The mark awarded to each student registered for each of the modules to be considered by the meeting. These will be automatically rounded to the nearest whole number by SAINT.
• The mean mark and standard deviation for each module.

Outputs (ARRA 5)

• Full mark sheets produced from SAINT and signed by theChairperson of the Assessment Committee and by any external examiner(s) attending the meeting. This should show:

• the confirmed mark awarded to each student for the modules considered.
• the mean and standard deviation for each module considered
• Minutes of Assessment Committee meeting should be taken (ARRA 6.2) (Model minutes are available in this pack)
• when considering students studying on collaborative courses, it is good practice to have statistics for comparable ‘on-site’ courses available so that the performance of the different groups can be monitored.

Retention of Marks

• Under the Data Protection Act marks may be kept on (electronic or paper) record only for as long as there is a genuine need to do so. This might include the possibility of dealing with an appeal, where the provenance of a given unit mark could be questioned, for example. Once no further use is envisaged for holding information, it should be destroyed. The University will make the necessary decisions relating to the holding of information on SAINT, in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act and the QAAHE Code of Practice on the Assessment of Students. If a School is retaining any paper record of marks, it will need to ensure that it meets these requirement as set out in the University’s policy on the Retention of Assessed Work: Storage of Examination Scripts and Assessed Coursework Submission. This document sets out the timescales which Schools should follow for the storage and disposal of examination scripts and assessed coursework and also offers guidance on the procedure to be used if Schools have annotated individual scripts. Full details are available on

Boards of Examiners

Functions

• A Board of Examiners considers the marks achieved by individual students registered for one or more specific courses of study with a view to determining eligibility for progression and award. (ARRA 8.1)
• Every student registered for the course(s) under consideration must be reviewed by a Board of Examiners of the School administering the course(s). (ARRA 8.1, 8.2)
• A Board of Examiners may not change any of the marks awarded to a student under the School’s approved confirmation of marks procedure. (ARRA 8.7)
• It is considered good practice and helpful to the efficient conduct of business if the Chair briefly outlines the progression/award criteria at the start of the meeting.
• In making its decision on a student’s progress or award, a Board of Examiners shall take into account the recommendations of the Extenuating Circumstances Sub-Committee. (ARRA 8.4) A guide to dealing with extenuating circumstances is included in this pack, together with Guidelines on the Data Protection Act.
• Course External Examiners should attend all Boards of Examiners, including Collaborative and Supplementary Assessment. Schools should consult with the External Examiner when arranging Boards to ensure attendance. If any Course External Examiner (s) cannot subsequently attend, the approval of the PVC (Learning and Teaching) must be given for the Board to go ahead. The concurrence of the absent Course External Examiner(s) with the outcomes of the meeting of the Board of Examiners must be obtained. (EE 3.9, 3.10)
• If the External Examiner cannot attend, a Board may request permission to use Skype, Video or Telephone conferencing which must be approved by the PVC (Learning and Teaching) in advance and enable the External Examiner to participate in the proceedings as they would if they were in attendance.(EE 3.11)
• The use of viva voce examination of selected candidates is forbidden (ARRA 8.3)

Timing (see also theChecklist of dates related to assessment)

• Where students registered for the course(s) to be considered by the Board of Examiners have taken course units administered by other Schools, the Board of Examiners should not meet before 17th June 2013, unless it can be demonstrated that all relevant marks have been agreed in SAINT before the proposed date of the Board of Examiners meeting.
• If it is impossible to conform to the above requirement, and should any relevant marks not have been confirmed in time for the Board of Examiners meeting, decisions on the affected students must be deferred until definitive marks are available.
• All Boards of Examiners considering awards of degrees and/or diplomas of the University should have met and decisions agreed in SAINT and Pass Lists to Student Administration and Support by the end of 29th June 2012. Schools should aim to have Pass Lists with SAS within 48 hours of the Board taking place.
• Boards considering results for other Stages must be completed and decisions agreed in SAINT by 13th July 2012.

Information Required (ARRA 6,7)

• The names of those who should attend. The Board of Examiners must have present at least one member of academic staff able to report authoritatively on each assessed module under consideration and able to answer queries that may arise concerning students’ performance.

• It is important that a full complement of academic staff attend. At present there is no quorum for Boards of Examiners but it is the responsibility of the Chair of the Board of Examiners to ensure that the Board is in possession of all the information it needs to make a decision. The Chair can take appropriate action if it is not, ie postpone the meeting or record Decision Deferred in respect of student(s). The QAA Code of Practice on the Assessment of Students expects all staff to attend.
• Attendance Sheet (included in pack). In order to monitor attendance at Boards of Examiners, a standard attendance sheet should be completed for all meetings and the original retained by AQU.
• All Chairs of Boards of Examiners are required to attend an Induction Programme to help them to fulfil the demands of the role and only those staff who have attended such a programme will be permitted to Chair a Board of Examiners.
• The Dean of School is the Chair of the Board or their delegated nominee. In the interests of impartiality, no Board of Examiners should be chaired by the member of staff who has any responsibility for the oversight of all or any part of the programmes under consideration, unless approval has been granted by the Dean of the School, who could confirm that independence and impartiality would not be compromised. This also applies to Collaborative provision where the Board should be chaired by a member of staff from the home School and normally the same person who chairs the meeting for the on-site course.

• Mark sheets using the Exam Board Reports produced from SAINT, where courses can be processed through SAINT, for every module taken by every student at the Stage(s) under consideration. The stage averages will be shown to one decimal place and should not be rounded up. This should be signed by theChairperson of the Board of Examiners, the Representative from Academic Quality Unit and by all external examiner(s) attending the meeting.
• When considering students studying on collaborative courses, it is considered good practice to have statistics for comparable ‘on-site’ courses available so that the performance of the different groups can be monitored.

• Extenuating Circumstances – Students who are unable to attend or submit assessments on time are required to seek approval/extensions in advance and this will be managed by named individual(s) in the School on behalf of the Extenuating Circumstances Sub-Committee. These do not need to go to the committee for further discussion or approval. It is a requirement that all requests for extenuating circumstances which relate to poor performance in assessments or late notification for missed assessments, be considered by a Extenuating Circumstances Sub-Committee of the Board of Examiners, to be held prior to the Board of Examiners. Any member of staff wishing to raise a case of extenuating circumstances relating to an individual student, where no submission of extenuating circumstances has been received from the student concerned is required to submit a formal written report for consideration by the Extenuating Circumstances Sub-Committee. (For full details see University Policy and Procedures for Managing Cases of Extenuating Circumstances included in this pack)
• For all students in the final Stage of a course: the marks from the previous Stage and a note of any special circumstances taken into consideration at relevant previous meetings of Boards of Examiners. Mark profiles must be compiled in accordance with the regulations on carry-forward of marks.

Outputs

• Pass lists from SAINT, where courses can be processed through SAINT, which contains all the information required in respect of the Board’s decisions with regard to individual students. These should be checked and signed by the Dean of School; they may however be signed by the Chair of the Board of Examiners or the Chair of the Departmental Academic Committee (or body fulfilling that function) if responsibility has been delegated.

• The Representative of the University from the Academic Quality Unit is no longer required to check and sign pass lists before the results may be released to students. They are no longer required to receive the original results list or mark sheet.
• External Examiners must sign mark sheetsfor meetings of Boards of Examiners which they have attended. (EE 3.7)
• If an External Examiner is unable to be present at the meeting of the Board of Examiners, their concurrence may be confirmed subsequently, but must be obtained. (EE 3.9)

• All results will subsequently be considered for approval on behalf of the appropriate School Boardand on behalf of Senate. (ARRA 8.6, UR 22, PR 14)
• Formal minutes of the meeting are required (ARRA 9.3). Minutes should be produced as soon as possible after the meeting in order that they can be made available if required for investigations under any Student Appeals etc. These should include:

i)the recommendations of the Extenuating Circumstances Sub-Committee on circumstances which may have affected the performance of individual candidates or groups of candidates.

ii)the consideration of and decisions on such special cases. The Data Protection Act has implications for the way in which the University records and makes accessible to students decisions regarding their performance at Boards of Examiners and, in particular, the consideration of Extenuating Circumstances. Further details on the requirements of the Act and model minutes for use at Boards of Examiners/Extenuating Circumstances Sub-Committees are available in this pack.

iii)information regarding the setting of boundaries for degree classification, see information available in this pack regarding setting degree classification boundaries.

iv)the reasons for departure from the approved Procedures of the Board of Examiners in a particular case. For example, a Board of Examiners may recommend that students be permitted to proceed to the next Stage of a course where, exceptionally and in particular, individual cases, the Board of Examiners judges a student's performance to be satisfactory on other grounds; such cases and the reasons for them shall be reported to and be subject to approval by the School Board and (in a case involving Final Degree Assessment) the Senate.

v)any recommendations for exemptions from the Course or University Regulations.

Discretion of Board of Examiners

• The Board of Examiners has the discretion in certain cases to condone 'failed' modules, with or without extenuating circumstances, where it is deemed that the interests of the student would not be served by undertaking re-assessment. A Board of Examiners should seek to apply this consistently within and between cohorts. Separate and specific approval would not be required for cases where there were extenuating circumstances but it would be required where a Board of Examiners wished to condone on 'other grounds.' However, in recognition of the fact that the University considers that condonement is not always in the best interests of the student, especially at Stage Two, students with extenuating circumstances should normally be advised to undertake supplementary assessment as a first attempt.
• The Board of Examiners has the discretion exceptionally to recommend the award to a particular student of a classification other than that which would be indicated …..because of extenuating circumstances. It is not required to seek separate, specific approval in cases of documented extenuating circumstances but the decision should be recorded in the minutes. However, where a Board of Examiners decides exceptionally to recommend the award to a particular student of a classification other than that which would be indicated 'on other grounds,’ such cases and the reasons for them shall be reported to and be subject to approval by the School Board and the Senate. This means that specific approval needs to be sought whenever a Board of Examiners makes a recommendation under this section of the Regulations. This should be separate to the normal approval sought from School Board/Senate for all the recommendations of the Boards of Examiners. Schools are not permitted to release affected students' results until after the specific written approval has been obtained, meanwhile recording 'Decision Deferred' on the published Pass Sheet. This will reinforce the exceptional nature of a decision under this category.
• 'Wiping the Slate Clean' - Students Repeating a Stage with attendance. Current University advice is that students repeating the year with attendance should be recorded as an attempt at supplementary assessment but it is at the discretion of the Board of Examiners to use the best marks from 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th attempt in determining progression. A capped mark will be used for determining classification. Only if there are extenuating circumstances is the slate 'wiped clean' and in such cases, the carry forward mark is based on the subsequent attempt which is deemed to be the first attempt. The 'clean slate' approach should be applied only to those students undertaking re-assessment with attendance, for whom there are accepted documented extenuating circumstances. There is one exception to this and that is where students have failed a course, having exhausted all permitted attempts at supplementary assessment but are transferred to the Combined Studies Degree programme. For such students, all previous attempts at units are wiped clean and they start anew on the Combined Studies course programme, with up to four attempts at new material. In rare cases, a student who was not permitted to proceed on their original course but who had not exhausted all possible attempts (under the general University regulations) might be permitted to undertake a module from their original course and complete the remaining attempts at this. They would not be permitted a further four attempts at this previously studied credit.

Releasing Results and Marks

• It is the responsibility of the School to inform students registered for its programmes of study of results and all final marks in the units undertaken, in writing or via e-vision, in confidence within 10 days of the production of the results. (ARRA 9.7)

• Pass Lists are produced by SAINT but must no longer be published to students in any format or by any means. All marks or other results relating to an individual student, including the decision of the Board of Examiners, should only be provided directly to that individual student. There should be no links to lists where information is given on more than one student. No student must be able to access results relating to any other student.

• Under the Data Protection Act marks may be kept on (electronic or paper) record only for as long as there is a genuine need to do so. This might include the possibility of dealing with an appeal, for example. Once no further use is envisaged for holding information, it should be destroyed. The University will make the necessary decisions relating to the holding of information on SAINT, in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act and the QAAHE Code of Practice on the Assessment of Students. If a School is retaining any paper record of marks, it will need to ensure that it meets these requirements as set out in the University’s policy on the Retention of Assessed Work: Storage of Examination Scripts and Assessed Coursework Submission. This document sets out the timescales which Schools should follow for the storage and disposal of examination scripts and assessed coursework and also offers guidance on the procedure to be used if Schools have annotated individual scripts. Full details are available on

• Debtors –A new policy has recently been agreed. For further advice see Student Administration and Support.
• Breaches and Appeals - All students with suspected breaches of assessment regulations/appeals outstanding for whom Decision Deferred is recorded on the Pass Sheet be advised of the results of individual modules and any potential supplementary examinations, within the usual 10 day notification period following the Board of Examiners. Potential re-sits would include those units in dispute, as well as those modules in which they would normally be permitted /entitled to supplementary assessment. It should be made clear to affected students that this notification was independent of and separate from any outcome of the decision on the module(s) in question and should in no way be taken as an indication thereof. It is the responsibility of the School convening a Board of Examiners to inform their AQU representative as soon as the information is available that will enable decisions to be made that were deferred at the original meeting. The Board of Examiners will normally authorise the Chairperson to take Chair's Action once the information becomes available. It is not usually necessary to reconvene the Board, but there is no regulatory reason not do so. If the case has not been resolved prior to the start of the next academic period, students who would otherwise be progressing into the next stage of their studies should be permitted to re-register, on the understanding that the resolution of the allegation against them may necessitate their withdrawal or intercalation from the course.

• Decision Deferred – this may also be recorded, when, for example, a submission deadline has been extended, or if individual marks are awaited from other School. Such students should also be notified, as above, of any potential re-sit, so as not to disadvantage them in respect of the amount of revision time available, although these cases are often resolved more quickly than breaches or appeals. Chairs action should also be taken in respect of the final decision.

Supplementary Assessment