New Policy on Mitigating Circumstances
NEW POLICY ON MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
This document summarises some of the questions asked by staff in Schools for clarification of the new procedures and how to implement them, together with the answers that have been given.
Question / Answer1 / How can we approve mitigating circumstances in advance of a missed assessment when the mitigating circumstances committee may not meet until months afterwards, and it can only make recommendations to the Board of Examiners? / It may be possible to think about dealing with mitigating circumstances in advance for missed exams/labs etc in the same way as we do for coursework extensions, i.e. the student makes the request in advance and it is agreed (or not) by an individual who may be a course director, ADLT etc (the person who normally grants extensions). The authority would be delegated to them from the mitigating circumstances committee so that they can make a definitive decision, just as they would for coursework extensions. This would not need to be subject to mitigating circumstances committee/exam board approval, in the same way that extensions are not subject to that approval.
2 / The wording circulated to students says that mitigating circumstances must be approved before the submission/examination date but for internal purposes we have applied this as having to be received and logged onto SAINT by this date (or in extreme cases within the following 7 days). / Approval must be given in advance unless it is impossible to do so, e.g. illness on the day. I appreciate that it may be difficult to implement and that a business process may need to reviewed/amended, but that is what the regulations say. See above for a suggestion on how to implement this.
3 / Students may not be able to bring evidence in advance of the missed assessment, how can we deal with that? / Some cases will be clear, with evidence to hand when the decision is made so that a definitive yes or no can be given in advance. Others might have good reason but no evidence as yet. Students will be allowed up to 7 days after the assessment to bring in their supporting evidence (unless there is good reason why they cannot do so). These students should be advised that the reasons for missing the exam will be considered as good cause “subject to evidence being available” and therefore if the exam is happening before the evidence can be provided, they would be advised to take the exam in case the request was turned down later.
4 / Some students may take their assessments even though, on the day, they do not feel well enough to do so. We accept that, due to the new policy, we are going to encourage this. This disadvantages these students, who may perform below their best. / Mitigating circumstances committees would continue to consider mitigating circumstances that relate to issues such as poor performance in assessment, etc. Such requests should be submitted as soon as possible and no later than 7 days after the assessment.
5 / Can students appeal against a decision not to approve their request to sit an exam? / There is no appeal process against decisions of a mitigating circumstances committee or delegated authority. Students can appeal against the decision of the Board of Examiners, which may not take place until some considerable time after the event. All staff should be advising all students to take their assessments if they do not have approval in advance to miss it, and then to submit mitigating circumstances regarding poor performance. They can then appeal against any decision that this was not good cause and, whether they are successful or not, will not be charged for the right to undertake any necessary resits.
6 / If a student requests approval to miss an exam and this is turned down, the student may then still put in mitigating circumstances. / If a request is made in advance and then turned down, the student can of course put in a mitigating circumstances request for poor performance caused by having to sit an exam that they did not feel well enough to sit, for example. This would be dealt with at the mitigating circumstances committee and Board of Examiners in the usual way. If they have been turned down but still do not sit the exam, they cannot then put in further mitigating circumstances as to why they did not do it, as these have already been submitted and turned down. They could appeal, but only after the Board of Examiners has met which may be a long time after the event.
7 / It would be really helpful if there was a list of what should and should not be considered as good cause/mitigating circumstances. This would also ensure consistent practice within and across Schools. / This will be produced.
8 / A list of what is and is not considered as acceptable evidence would also be useful. E.g.
a doctors letter saying “this student tells me that they were ill last Friday” = not acceptable.
“This student was ill last Friday” = acceptable / This will be produced.
9 / Is the charge of £100 or per component of original assessment or per supplementary assessment? We have some modules with five components but the supplementary assessment is just one exam. If a student has missed all the components, would they pay £500 or £100? / We do not charge for supplementary assessments, so the charge is not linked to the number of supplementary assessments that there may be within the module. The charge of £100 is for each missed component of assessment. So, in this example, the student would be charged £500 for the right to take the supplementary exam.
10 / If a student has missed a component of assessment but has achieved 35% for the module as a whole, and is allowed to pass and proceed under the compensation regulations, will they still have to pay £100? / This would count as non-completions under the HEFCE definition, but not under our own University regulations. We are charging students for the right to supplementary assessment and, as this student would not need a resit, there would be no charge.
11 / Will Schools have to charge the students and collect the money? / Charging students will be done centrally and not by Schools – the role of the School would be to ensure that SAINT was correct, but not to have to raise invoices or collect the charge.
12 / When will students be expected to pay and what if they don’t? / We anticipate that the invoice would need to be raised as soon after Board of Examiners meeting as possible. There would be a fairly short timescale for payment to be made, before the supplementary exam timetable was run. Students who do not pay would be treated like any other debtor. (This answer is provisional as the detail still needs to be worked out).
13 / If a student missed their first attempt, their right to a second one is taken away - if they pay the £100, they get a SECOND attempt, because the max mark is 35%. Is that correct? / Yes
14 / Are students failed and charged £100, or are they
failed and it is their choice to pay £100 and then do a second attempt? / They will automatically be charged the £100. I think the question of whether they choose to pay or not simply confuses the issue although of course they can choose not to pay and not to take the assessment – but would then fail the whole course and be required to withdraw.
15 / What about students who are required by the June/July Board of Examiners to repeat the stage with attendance due to 80 or more failed credits (if these are due to non-submissions)? / No charge will be made for the supplementary assessments as these students will be charged a full fee for a repeat stage and therefore will not be taking supplementary assessment from the previous stage.
The same applies to students who have failed 70 credits and are required to repeat modules with attendance during the next stage.
16 / In our School we do not give extensions– students have to submit when they can and then submit mitigating circumstances to explain the late submission, which will then be judged to see whether this was for good cause or not. / This is no longer possible under the new policy. Students are therefore required to request extensions in advance and if these are acceptable, be given an extension appropriate to the mitigating circumstances.
17 / In our School, students are given extensions for a max period of 2 weeks and then if that is not long enough, they are not given a further extension but have to submit when they can and then submit mitigating circumstances to explain the late submission, which will then be judged to see whether this was for good cause or not. / This is no longer possible under the new policy. Students are therefore required to request extensions in advance and if these are acceptable, be given an extension appropriate to the mitigating circumstances. Should they require more time following the first extension, they should request a further extension (with evidence as appropriate) and a further extension granted if the circumstances warrant it.
18 / Escalate provision – we are very much in the hands of employers for the deadlines for submission and have to take advice from them. We tend to set a very long deadline (usually the next year). Can we exempt this provision from the mitigating circumstances policy in some way? / The length of time for assessments does not matter so if an Escalate module has a one year submission deadline, then students will be judged on whether or not they have submitted by that deadline, or whether they have requested an extension in advance. I am not sure that we need to exempt them from the policy provided that this is made clear to them.
19 / Social work placements – these start when the placement providers are identified so there isn’t a standard start date any more. The submission deadline, therefore, is not standard. Students are required to submit the portfolio the first working day after their placement ends. I’m not quite sure how to manage this for mitigating circumstances. We do keep track of start and end dates as best we can, but it doesn’t leave us much time for ‘in advance’ notification and agreement of mitigating circumstances in relation to the submission deadline. / A standard submission date is not a requirement of the policy; provided that students are aware when their submission date is going to be then they are subject to the same regulation as everyone else. Presumably students are working on their portfolio during their placement so would know in advance whether or not they need an extension before the submission date? I appreciate the tight turnaround time for submission and we need to be sensitive to issues around professional practice, but students do also need to be aware of the professional importance of meeting deadlines.
20 / Is it possible for the exams office to notify students of the time that they need to be in the examination room as the 'start time' of exam? Whilst I appreciate that our current system, notification of start time, and strong advice that students are required to be there 15 minutes beforehand, should be clear enough, but every year we get some students who do not appreciate that they will be barred from the room, and unable to sit the exam, unless they arrive 15 minutes before the start time. / The problem with telling students that the arrival time (15 minutes early) is actually the start time is that it will only work once! If they know that a 9 a.m. exam actually starts at 9.15, they will arrive for 9.15 after that first time of arriving at 9.
I think that the only way to approach this is to continue to discuss with students the importance of planning to arrive early just in case something happens on the way to the exam, just as they would if they were catching a train or a plane. I know that they do not always realise the impact and importance of this, but that is our job (for all of us, both centrally and in Schools) to keep on stressing it until they do hear the message.
Within the next few months we will also be developing an application for smart phones that will alert students an hour before an exam, and will then guide them via GPS to the right building and then to the right room via integrated floor plans.
You may not know that the number of students who do not turn up for exams has steadily decreased over the last year or so since we started sending out individual timetables to every student, and we think that the number will decrease even more this January when students will have to pay £100 (per missed component of assessment without prior approval) for the right to reassessment. We will be doing a report for Senate on this later in the year.
21 / Is it legally acceptable for the University to change regulations throughout the course of the academic year and if so should this information be included in the regulation documentation? / Normally the University would not seek to change regulations mid-year, but on some occasions this is necessary, and this was one of those rare occasions. Other institutions are in the same situation as us and are making similar changes. There is nothing in the regulations which stipulates that changes will not be made for the duration of a course and, just as curricular content might change, regulations occasionally need to be changed. Our commitment in such cases is always to ensure that students are kept fully informed of any changes, and we have undertaken a mass communication campaign to ensure that all students are aware of the new policy.
22 / Does the new policy apply to students studying at Collaborative Partner Institutions? / The original agreement was that the policy of submitting mitigating circumstances in advance of missed assessments would also apply to CP institutions from 1st December, but that the issue of whether or not to charge students would be left up to them. It has since been agreed that CP institutions will not be required to implement the “in advance” part of the policy until September 2010.
CT
10/12/09