Dear Maths Students,

I hope you all received the university's communication today about teaching and assessment.

Perhaps the main point is the university's commitment to ensure students' performance on their degrees is not adversely affected by the nature of the assessments. Naturally there are details to be filled in, but I hope that offers some reassurement to us all.

In addition, the university has decided to cancel Term 3 teaching, so our modules MA112, MA209 and MA256 will not go ahead. Obviously this will be disappointing for students registered for those modules. I sympathise with that, but the university is making difficult decisions with a view to securing rigorous and resilient graduation and progression for all students, which of course is vital.

I want to say a word about revision, and the good mathematics I hope you are still able to do. I cannot yet say exactly what the assessments for students in Years 2, 3 and 4 will be, but we have made proposals for assessment to the university that are at least familiar in style, even where the mechanisms for taking them will be different. Understanding definitions, proofs and calculations, learning to navigate your own lecture notes and other resources and to follow the logical threads through them, and synthesising the big ideas introduced across the curriculum will all continue to make you better mathematicians, and therefore perform better in any kind of assessment. I encourage you most strongly to continue to work towards exams of the style you are used to, even though we know this year some things will be different.

I know there are concerns among students that online assessment will give rise to temptations to cheat. I understand the concern, even though I do not believe any students in this department would want to misrepresent their achievements, and thereby devalue their own degree to themselves for the rest of their life. Ultimately, the department will study assessment outcomes extremely carefully. Before we enter the assessment period in April, I will remind all students of the details and meaning of academic malpractice, even though we know them well; in the intellectual environment we work in together, it is essentially the only academic crime, and we are adamant that it should not happen.

Over the coming days we will see the details of April and Summer assessment unfold from the University. I will write again to you within a few days once we have absorbed that information.
 
John Greenlees