Email sent 22 July 2022:

Dear Heads of Department and Department Administrators,

We have created a web page summarising updates to education policy, regulations and guidance for academic departments for 2022-23. This is currently on the Insite newsfeed and will be in the Inbox email next week. You may also wish to cascade within your department to ensure that key colleagues are aware.

Operational Changes for Exams
These operational changes are designed to ensure equity across students and assure the integrity of assessments. They are initially to be implemented by academic departments for the academic year 2022/23 only but will be reviewed during the year to determine if they should become more permanent.

Changes to our Mitigating Circumstances Policy and guidance
A revised mitigating circumstances policy has been approved by Senate and will apply to all students from the start of the 2022/23 academic year.

Information explaining the key changes for different types of users is available on the Education Policy and Quality webpages.

Departments are asked to review the changes and actions for departments, which summarises information that should be published to students registered on courses in the department (usually in course handbooks) and to students taking assessments in modules delivered by the department. Staff involved in panels or exam board outcomes may also wish to view highlights relevant for them and sign up for updates about availability of further support and guidance resources.

Self-certification Policy
There will be no change to the self-certification for 22/23 (following recommendation by the Mitigating Circumstances Review Group), however departments are invited to review the eligibility of individual assessments for self-certification in light of experiences over the past academic year. Changes may be submitted via the normal MAB return process run by the Examinations team over the summer. More information and previously published guidance on self-certification eligibility can be found here.

Rules for Award
The Rules for Award have been changed to state that If a student fails a module due to failing a component that a PSRB requires to be passed, the compulsory reassessed component must be capped at the component pass mark and the original module mark (if greater than the pass mark) must remain unaltered (6.4).

Also, for taught postgraduate qualifications, where departments specify that a student must attain a mark on a particular module (or modules) of 60.0% or above for an award with merit, or 70.0% or above for an award with distinction, this must be approved by the Academic Quality and Standards Committee and specified in information provided to students (10.6).

The new version of the Rules for Award will be published in full in time for the academic year 2022/23.

 

Changes to the Academic Integrity Framework
The Academic Integrity Framework has been updated to better align with the Office of the Independent Adjudicator’s expectations and prevent unfruitful escalation of cases to an Academic Integrity Committee. If you support academic misconduct proceedings in a department, please make sure you are aware of the changes to the framework. If you're an Academic Integrity Lead, we will have been in touch to ask about how you apply penalties. This will help us to develop a sanction framework that will enable all departments to take a consistent approach.

 

Maximum Period of Study Policy
The Maximum Period of Study Policy, which sets out the minimum and maximum periods of registration for all our awards, will apply on a rolling basis from the academic year 2022/23. Please note, the table in this policy replaces the similar table that was previously in Regulation 37.

 

Pass mark for Taught Postgraduate Students
For students who started their integrated Master’s courses in 2020/21 and onwards, please remember to apply a pass mark of 50% when they take Level 7 modules, even if they are taking the module in their third year of study.

 

Subject Specific Undergraduate Exit Awards
Departments carrying out course approval are encouraged to create exit awards at the same time so students receive a more meaningfully titled undergraduate exit award, e.g. Diploma of Higher Education in Mathematics. The exit award should be contained within the higher award proposal, e.g. details of the Diploma of Higher Education in Mathematics would be captured in the BSc Mathematics proposal, a separate proposal per exit qualification is not required. An Institutional Board of Examiners (IBE) will be held on 30 September 2022 for the 2021/22 academic year. Further details about arrangements for the IBE will be published on the exit awards webpage by the middle of August.

 

Updated Good Practice Guide on Providing Information to Students
You can now access the 2022/23 version of this Guide, to help you prepare student handbooks for the new academic year.

 

Updated Good Practice Guide on Monitoring Student Engagement and ProgressionYou can now access the 2022/23 version of this Guide, which is intended to help you support students’ learning through monitoring their engagement and academic progress, and to comply with requirements for monitoring students who need a Student Visa to study here.