Assessment handbook

Assessment criteria

Generic assessment criteria to guide marking in qualitative and quantitative work at each level (3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

Assessment practice

Guidance on marking rubrics, assessment briefs and workload equivalence is available from the Centre for Higher Education Research and Practice.  See Academic Development - resources.

Assessment handbook

The first edition of the University's Assessment Handbook, endorsed by the then Teaching and Learning Committee, was published in 2001.

The Handbook has been compiled as a practical guide, to assist academic and other staff engaged in the assessment of students of the University or of its partner institutions.  It is intended to promote best practice.  Written at a general University level, it does not stand in isolation from faculty or subject-level policies and strategies which it complements.

The Working Group which compiled the Assessment Handbook undertook a review in 2002. Further editions were published in 2003, 2007 and annually since 2009.

The latest edition of the Assessment handbook is published on the Academic Office website.  This edition incorporates the following changes since the 2018 edition:

  • availability of national Honours degree classification descriptions (December 2019) (14.1);
  • classification of Master's degrees of more than 200 credit points (October 2019) (14.7);
  • inclusion of the confirmed Honours classification algorithm for Integrated Master’s degrees (March 2019) (14.7);
  • revision to internal moderation policy (October 2019) and removal of requirement for external examiners to see all work of first class or Distinction candidates as part of the moderation process (June 2019), with sampling now permitted (15.2 and 15.4);
  • inclusion of link to QAA guidance on contract cheating (18.4);
  • extension of plagiarism register to include all forms of cheating (June 2018) (18.6);
  • revised procedures for extenuating circumstances, with self-certification permitted for periods of ill-health affecting performance up to five working days (June 2019) (19.5).