1

Suggested agenda for:

Course Boards of Examiners (Attachment 1A)
Campus Progress and Award Board (Attachment 1B)
Subject Boards of Examiners (Attachment 1C)
 

2

Suggested template for Minutes of Meeting of:

Course Boards of Examiners (Attachment 2A)
Campus Progress and Award Board (Attachment 2B)
Subject Boards of Examiners (Attachment 2C)

3

Notes of Guidance for Course Boards of Examiners and Campus Progress and Award Board (Attachment 3)

4

Procedures to be followed in the Absence of an External Examiner (Attachment 4)
 

5

Academic Standing Types used for recording decisions on candidates (Attachment 5) - These are the new academic progress codes introduced with the Banner Student Records and Information System
 

6

Guidelines: Recommendations for Aegrotat and Posthumous Awards (Attachment 6)
 

7

Timetable for consideration of student appeals (Attachment 7)
 

8

Prizes and awards (Attachment 8)
 

9

Duties of Heads of Faculty Administration (Attachment  9)

(a)

Location of Meetings of Boards of Examiners

Meetings of Boards of Examiners should take place on the campus of delivery and, where a Board cannot be held on the appropriate campus, all staff who are members of the Board must attend the meeting at the designated location; teleconferencing is not permitted.

(b)

(i) Course/Subject Boards of Examiners

The Chairperson of the Course/Subject Board of Examiners shall be the Dean or Associate Dean of the Faculty in which the course/subject is located, or a Head or Associate Head of School in the Faculty, other than the School in which the course/subject is located, the Chief Executive Officer of UU Health or the Director of Access and Distributed Learning.  Heads of Graduate School may be permitted to chair Boards of Examiners provided that they have some responsibility for taught courses.  In the absence of the designated chairperson, the board shall be chaired by a person appointed by the appropriate Pro-Vice-Chancellor acting on the authority of the Senate.

(ii) Campus Progress and Award Board

The Chairperson of the Progress and Award Board shall be a Dean appointed by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor responsible.  The Deans currently appointed are:

Coleraine: Professor P O'Dochartaigh, Dean Faculty of Arts
Jordanstown: Professor A Moran, Dean Faculty of Social Sciences
Magee: Professor R Hutchinson, Dean Faculty of Business and Management.
 

(c)

(d)

Postgraduate Certificate/Postgraduate Diploma/Master’s Courses

Candidates progressing directly between linked postgraduate courses (that is from Postgraduate Certificate to Postgraduate Diploma and Postgraduate Diploma to Master’s degree) do not have the intermediate award conferred.  Such candidates should be recorded as AST P5 on the course results sheets (P6 in the case of one year full-time Postgraduate Diplomas linked to Master’s degrees or PD for Nursing courses only where a professional award is also recorded).

The Board of Examiners shall consider the eligibility of each candidate on the course for the award with Distinction and record this where applicable on the course results sheet. Recommendations can therefore be forwarded to Senate without further consideration by Boards of Examiners for those candidates who decide at a later stage to take the award and not proceed and who are eligible for the award with Distinction.

Candidates who are eligible to proceed to the higher award but choose not to do so may have the lower award conferred at the Summer graduation if they are identified at the Board of Examiners and coded AST S1 (or SA as applicable).  Those candidates who subsequently decide to take an award and not to proceed must apply in writing to the Examinations Office.  The Examinations Office will add AST S1 to the candidate’s record, record a date of leaving and forward the recommendation to the next meeting of Senate which will normally be in November.  All candidates will be invited to attend the Winter graduation to receive their awards in person.

NB.  These procedures do not apply to the Postgraduate Certificate in Further & Higher Education.

(e)

(f)

Boards will receive, in the course/subject result sheets, marks which were considered at the end of Semester One.  These marks are subject to confirmation by Boards.

All provisional marks amendments (other than those made on the final edition of the course results sheets) should be forwarded without delay to the appropriate office: School office for amendments agreed at Subject Boards, Examinations Office for amendments agreed for integrated courses.  Any amendments to the final edition of the course result sheet(s), whether made by the Course Director prior to the Board of Examiners’ meeting or by the Chairperson at the meeting, shall be recorded in red ink. The Examinations Office will subsequently amend the computer record.  Marks amendments for Semester Two will be completed by 26 June 2009 and all marks will be published on the Portal by 30 June 2009.

Publication of Progress and Award Information

Progress and award information will be available to students on the web only after each Board of Examiners, normally within two working days of the meeting of the Board (three working days where the meeting is held on another campus). 

(g)

P3 - Proceed to another year (other than placement)

Candidates may be permitted to carry a failed module or modules amounting to a maximum of 20 credit points at undergraduate level, providing that the module(s) carried are not prerequisite(s) for a module in the next year of the course.  The rule applies to honours degrees, degrees, Foundation degrees, Associate Bachelor’s degrees, and the first year of part-time Access to HE courses.  It does not apply to Master’s, Postgraduate Diplomas, Postgraduate Certificates, and undergraduate Certificates and Diplomas as only one resit attempt is permitted for these awards.  The failed element(s) must be taken in the semester in which the module is taught, special arrangements to enable candidates to be reassessed in a different manner are not permitted.

When considering performance in current year modules Course/Subject Directors should ensure that these candidates have satisfied requirements in coursework and/or examinations for modules carried forward from 2007/08.

Boards may decide to exceed the maximum 20 credit points in the light of extenuating circumstances.

P4 - Proceed to Placement Year

Exceptionally Boards have discretion to recommend that candidates in year 2 of sandwich courses proceed to placement and  carry a failed module or modules providing that the module(s) carried are not prerequisite(s) for their employment.  This is permitted by exception, and in deciding whether to allow students to proceed, Boards should take account of the extent of failure, how badly modules have been failed and the requirements of the work placement.  The June Board will consider such a recommendation for candidates who have failed in modules to a value of 65 - 80 credit points, as failures in up to 60 points are normally retaken for the August supplementary period.  It may be possible to defer the start of placement for the latter candidates, and P4 will only be considered for them at the supplementary board.  The failed element(s) must normally be taken in the semester in which the module is taught, although exceptionally, for students proceeding to placement (AST P4), examination may be deferred to the following August; special arrangements to enable candidates to be reassessed in a different manner are not permitted. 

When considering performance in current year modules Course Directors should ensure that these candidates have satisfied requirements in coursework and/or examinations for modules carried forward from 2007/8.

Candidates who have successfully completed the IFY should be progressed to the linked degree course by recording AST P5 on the course results sheet.

Candidates who are eligible to proceed but choose not to do so may exit at this point with the award of Diploma, by recording AST S2 on the course results sheet, provided that this provision has been made in the course regulations.

(i)

Elements of Modules to be taken/retaken  

The elements of modules to be taken/retaken (ie. CW and/or EX) should be circled in red on the course results sheet.
 

(j)

Recording Condoned Fails

The Chairperson of the Board should ensure that where failure in a module is condoned it is recorded on the course result sheet by writing a ‘C’ in red ink against the module.

(k)

Deletion of Modules

Modules to be deleted from a candidate’s record should be crossed through in red ink on the course results sheet.

(m)

Timing of First Sits

Candidates who were permitted, following semester one assessment period to take Semester One examinations as for the first time normally will have taken these in May; alternatively a first sit in August may have been permitted, following consultation between the Course/Subject Director and the candidate.  Boards of Examiners/Progress and Award Boards in May/June should ensure that, subject to Semester Two performance, AST D2 is recorded on the course result sheets for candidates who have deferred first sits to August.
 

(n)

Inclusion of Student Qualification Aim in Course Results

The student qualification aim is included in course results sheets below the student registration number. Where the Board of Examiners/Campus Progress and Award Board recommends a different qualification, the qualification aim should be amended appropriately in red ink so that the Examinations Office can correct the computer record.

(o)

Repeated Assessments

For repeated assessments the capping of the mark applies to the repeated component (eg essay), not the overall mark for the element (eg coursework) or the overall module result. The maximum mark a candidate on an undergraduate course may obtain in a repeated coursework component, or examination paper, is 40% (50% for a postgraduate course). The mark for the repeated coursework component is aggregated with the mark(s) for coursework component(s) the candidate has already passed to produce the overall coursework mark.  Where a module is assessed by coursework and examination the overall coursework mark is aggregated with the examination mark for the purpose of calculating the module result. Aggregations should take account of the weightings at each level, ie between elements (coursework and examination) and within elements, as appropriate.

Example: The coursework element of a module comprises two equally weighted components (in this example the components are essays).  A candidate receives an unaggregated mark of 60 in the first essay but is required to resubmit the second essay for a maximum unaggregated mark of 40.  If the mark of 40 is achieved the final coursework mark is 60 + 40 aggregated to 30 + 20 = 50).

(p)

Arrangements for Candidates Repeating Without Attendance (ASTs N4 and N5)

Candidates coded N4 or N5 may not proceed on their course of study until the modules they are required to retake have been successfully completed.

Candidates who are permitted to take/retake examinations without attendance in the next academic year may need to have special papers set if the module assessment arrangements have been restructured.  Course/Subject Directors are required to advise candidates on the Communication of Results form whether their examination(s) will be held in the first and/or second semester.  However, a candidate, who is required to retake coursework and/or examination in a single Semester Two module only, may elect to retake this at the January examination period provided that he/she notifies the Examinations Office prior to the start of the academic year.  Successful candidates may be permitted to proceed to take semesters out of sequence.  In addition, successful candidates, who have been required to retake Semester One modules only, may be permitted to proceed to take semesters out of sequence.  Permission to reverse semesters is subject to approval by the Course/Subject Director following consultation about prerequisites and the sequence in which modules must be taken.

(r)

Classification of Final Honours Degree Result

In order to be considered for a particular class of Honours degree, candidates must obtain the overall minimum percentage for that class, in addition to obtaining marks in the class in at least 50% of the credit value of Level 3(6) modules.

Boards do not have discretion to award a class of degree which the marks do not warrant (eg IIi for 59%). However, the convention of rounding up means that, for example, 59.5% or above would become 60%.  The Board should ensure that, through its moderation processes, including the involvement of external examiners and viva voce examinations as appropriate, the overall marks and the class of degree recommended accord.

The aggregate mark used to determine the degree classification for candidates completing full-time honours degrees is included on the course results sheets and is based entirely on Level 3 modules taken in the final year amounting to 120 credit points.  The weighted mark for individual modules will be rounded to two decimal places and the aggregated mark on which the classification is based will be rounded to the nearest whole number on the basis that .49 or less is rounded down and .50 or greater is rounded up. The inclusion of the aggregate mark on course results sheets will not apply (i) for any course which has exceptionally been permitted to include results from Level 2(5) modules in determining the honours classification; (ii) where, in the final year, there is one or more fail mark(s) or a mark is missing for one or more coursework or examination elements; or (iii) where a candidate has repeated part of the final year from a previous year.

(s)

Use of ASTs: Clarifications

PA, PB, PC, PD, SA, SB and SC apply to Nursing courses only and may not be used for any other courses.

P2 should be used only where students are progressing to a further assessment point in the current academic year.

P1 should be used where a student is proceeding to the next academic year without further assessment. 

P9 is a new progress decision introduced this year.  It should be used for Master’s students who are not due to submit their dissertation until the next academic year, as per the normal duration specified in the course document, and are therefore permitted to proceed to the next academic year.  Examples are students requiring ethical approval or part-time students who begin their dissertation in June and would not be expected to complete until the next academic year.   This will ensure that Finance do not charge the module fee in the next academic year and the Examinations Office will not charge a re-enrolment fee.

D5 (rather than P1 or P9) should be used where Master’s students are given an extension of time to complete their dissertations. This will ensure that Finance do not charge the full module fee in the next academic year. 

P6 applies only to one year full-time linked Postgraduate Diploma/Master’s courses where students have successfully completed the Postgraduate Diploma stage of the course and are proceeding to the Master’s stage in the same academic year.

(t)

(u)

Failure at the Final Attempt

The Academic Development and Student Services Committee at its meeting on 12 December 2005 agreed that where a student failed at the final attempt and was required to withdraw from a programme of study, such a student would not be eligible to apply for re-admission, in the next academic year, to the same programme, or to that programme offered in a different mode (full-time to part-time and vice versa), or to register as an occasional student to retake the failed module(s).  Transfer on educational grounds to the programme offered in different mode would also not be permitted.

Template Agenda 

TLC at its meeting on 25 April 2007 agreed that the template agenda for Boards of Examiners should be revised so that Boards explicitly note any changes to module profiles.  This relates to decisions arising from the internal or external moderation processes (including preliminary board meetings) which lead to adjustments to the marks of all candidates in particular modules.

Certificate of Personal and Professional Development (CPPD)