This update contains information on the following topics:

Exit Awards

Good Practice Guide on Providing Information to Students

Accredited Courses

Graduate Diplomas *UPDATE*

Teaching Quality Website

Update on Accreditation of Placement Years

Course Discontinuations

Regulations covering Degree Apprenticeships

Updating module information for 2018/2019

Reading Lists 2018/19

Revisions to Regulation 42 – Academic Appeals

Nominations of new external examiners – release of SITS workflow system

Review of Assessment

Course Approval Update August 2018

Staff changes in Teaching Quality

Exit Awards

Following the approval of exit awards By the Senate, further operational details have been agreed.

Exit’ awards have been developed in order to recognise the achievement of students where it was not possible to award the highest qualification for which they were registered, this includes students as follows:

• who have not met progression requirements

• who withdraw due to personal or medical reasons

• who are restarting on another degree programme

There is an expectation that Boards of Examiners will make a recommendation to allow a student to remedy failure (e.g. resit, resit without residence as appropriate), wherever possible, to allow students an opportunity to progress, and only recommend an exit qualification where these possibilities have been exhausted (or are not available).

The following table outlines the total minimum credit to be taken and passed in order to be able to recommend each qualification:

Qualification	Total minimum credit to be taken	Total minimum credit to be passed	Highest level of credit	Minimum credit to be passed at the highest level
CertHE	120	90	4	90
DipHE	240	180	5	90

In order to apply the level of external oversight required for the award of a qualification, an institutional level Board of Examiners (IBE), including a non-subject specific external examiner, will be convened after the re-sit boards of examiners in September. To allow the membership of the IBE to be approved in advance, departments are asked to nominate a colleague as a member of the IBE 2018-19 now by emailing the name and department of the colleague to: exitawards at warwick dot ac dot uk noting that the meeting will be held on a date to be determined 24 - 26 September.

Where departments wish to recommend an exit award, an exams grid should be created and sent to: exitawards at warwick dot ac dot uk by Friday 21 September. Sample exams grids will be made available shortly. Grids should show information for any student eligible for an exit award, and include current students and those who have withdrawn within the academic year 2017-18.

Answers to frequently asked questions are being developed, but in the meantime please refer any questions not currently covered to: exitawards at warwick dot ac dot uk

Good Practice Guide on Providing Information to Students

This document, which aims to provide guidance, highlight good practice and identify resources for staff within departments, has been updated for 2018-19. Colleagues involved in the production of student handbooks are encouraged refer to this document when updating student handbooks, noting that page 21 has been updated to describe the University’s new policy on mitigating circumstances. The handbook, a checklist of topics and a template are available from the web page Providing Information to Students .

Accredited Courses

Around half of the University’s teaching departments offer courses which are accredited by public, statutory or regulatory bodies (PSRBs). This includes bodies such as Royal Society of Chemistry, Solicitors Regulation Authority, General Medical Council, and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. Enabling our students to graduate with accredited degrees increases the value of their degree, and also enhances the University’s reputation with employers and prospective students.

The Teaching Quality team in University House is on hand to provide support and advice regarding accreditations, so if you would like to discuss an existing accreditation, are planning to launch a new accredited course, or gain accreditation for an existing course, please get in touch with Katharine dot Stratford at warwick dot ac dot uk

Graduate Diplomas *UPDATE*

Further to our newsletter in May 2018, it was recommended by AQSC to the Senate that the revisions to the Graduate Diplomas become effective from October 2019, rather than October 2018 as previously planned. The Senate agreed this recommendation. Please contact Clair Henrywood: c dot henrywood at warwick dot ac dot uk if you have any questions.

Teaching Quality Website

We are working on improving the Teaching Quality website over the summer vacation. The aim of the initial phase is to make the website easier and more intuitive to navigate to find the information that you are looking for. We acknowledge that the overhaul of the website needs to be much more fundamental but that overhaul will be driven by changes introduced by projects such as the Review of Assessment over the forthcoming couple of years. If you have any ideas or suggestions that would assist with navigation, please contact Clair Henrywood: c dot henrywood at warwick dot ac dot uk

Update on Accreditation of Placement Years

The revised ‘Policy Statement for the Accreditation of Placement Year in Industry and Year Abroad’ replaces the ‘Accreditation of Placement Year in Industry and Year Abroad’ paper S.20/15-16 approved by the Senate in 2016. The updated statement outlines the policy for the recognition of credit for integrated placements and additional years of study abroad or work in industry where these form part of University of Warwick programmes.

The revised policy was approved by the Senate on 4 July 2018. It has been published online and can be found at https://warwick.ac.uk/services/aro/dar/quality/categories/placementlearning/

If you have any queries on the recognition of credit for placement years please contact: quality at warwick dot ac dot uk

Course Discontinuations

Changes to the process for discontinuation of courses have been approved to reflect the new course approval process and changes to the governance structure. The updated Policy and Procedure can now be found here . Proposals for discontinuation of courses should now be submitted to the Course Approvals Panel and those delivered in collaboration with a partner organisation will require approval from the Partnerships Committee. Further work will be taken forward in the coming year on enhancing this process further.

Regulations covering Degree Apprenticeships

University Regulations have been updated to incorporate Degree Apprenticeships and these will be published in the University Calendar in due course. The changes include the introduction of two new Regulations specifically for this type of provision. The Regulations being updated include:

• Regulations 6, Admission to University;
• Regulation 11, Procedure to be Adopted in the Event of Suspected Cheating in a University;
• Regulation 23, Student Disciplinary Offences ;
• Regulation 34, Fitness to Practise;
• Regulation 36, Continuation of Registration:
• Regulation 42, Academic Appeals;
• Regulation 43, Undergraduate Degree Apprenticeships Regulation;
• Regulation 44, Postgraduate Taught Degree Apprenticeships Regulation.

Further work on amending undergraduate assessment conventions, covering the award of degrees, degree classification and progression rules and requirements for postgraduate taught awards, for Degree Apprenticeships, will continue through the summer.

Updating module information for 2018/2019

As per previous years, departments are asked to maintain the module catalogue in advance of the 2018/19 year. Guidance on which aspects of the module catalogue can be edited, where auto-generated date is pulled from and how departments can do this can be downloaded from the homepage right-hand menu, see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/aro/dar/quality/modules/

If you have any queries on updating module information please contact quality at warwick dot ac dot uk

Reading Lists 2018/19

For all staff involved in teaching next academic session, it’s time to start thinking about your reading lists! Library staff are on hand to help with advice and support, so please get in touch via readinglists dot library at warwick dot ac dot uk as soon as possible to set up your list(s).

We are entering the peak period for ordering library stock, so the sooner you send your lists to the Library, the more likely it is that the resources your students need will be in place when they are required. As our PVC for Education, Professor Chris Hughes, has stated “Reading Lists for students are crucial to the University’s Education Strategy and enhancing student experience. They are important to our students’ learning and development and they facilitate the Library’s provision of excellent resources for student needs.”

The Library has lots of further information and guidance available here: https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/staff/reading-lists/

Revisions to Regulation 42 – Academic Appeals

Senate approved revisions to Regulation 42 – Academic Appeals on 13 June 2018 with immediate effect. These revisions include a requirement by the University to complete an academic appeals process within 80 University Working Days from the date of receipt of an appeal. Membership of the Preliminary Review Panel (PRP) was also revised to ensure that there would be no potential conflict of interest experienced by members of the panel which initially assesses an academic appeal. Concerns had been raised that the Chair of the Board of Examiners responsible for the decision which is being appealed, could potentially experience a conflict of interest if being a member of the PRP, hence membership of the PRP has been revised accordingly removing the Chair of the Board of Examiners from the PRP as published in section 4 of Regulation 42 at:

https://warwick.ac.uk/services/gov/calendar/section2/regulations/reg42academicappeals

Nominations of new external examiners – release of SITS workflow system

The SITS workflow system to be used by departments to nominate new external examiners will shortly be released for use; we anticipate that this will happen in mid-August ready to use for any remaining nominations of external examiners for 2018/19. This will replace the nominations process currently made via submission of a nominations form in Word format and a CV of the proposed nominee by departments. Heads of Schools/Departments or their designates will be able to nominate new external examiners via the new SITS workflow system and departments have already been asked for staff who should, in addition to the Head of School/Department, be able to nominate new external examiners ready for the release of the SITS workflow system. Further details and guidance notes on how to nominate new external examiners will follow when the workflow is released. Once the workflow is released, we will not accept nominations using the nominations form in Word anymore. The nominations and approvals process has not changed and remains as set out in a memo to HODs published here, just the means to submit nominations has changed using the SITS workflow system. For any queries in relation to the new nominations process of external examiners, please contact Claudia Gray: C dot Gray dot 1 at warwick dot ac dot uk

Review of Assessment

As part of the ongoing Review of Assessment, there will be changes to the following which have been approved by Senate on 4 July 2018:

(a) Revisions to Requirements for Postgraduate Taught Awards

The Requirements for Postgraduate Taught Awards effective from the academic year 2018/19 have been clarified and revised to include the right to an automatic re-sit for students who are enrolled on a single module Postgraduate Taught Award (PGA) to remedy failure in initial assessments.

(b) Revisions to the University’s Undergraduate Degree Classification Conventions

The University’s Undergraduate Degree Classification Conventions have been revised from the academic year 2018/19 to remove the first class borderline range of 70.0% to 70.9% to ensure that students whose overall classification marks fall within this range would automatically be awarded a first class honours degree by the Board of Examiners.

(c) New mitigating circumstances policy, guidance and IT system

A new mitigating circumstances policy and extensive guidance to students and staff will be introduced from the start of the academic year 2018/19 to enable students to present their mitigating circumstances in the best possible way and to submit the correct evidence to substantiate these. Similarly, the guidance to departments is intended to enable mitigating circumstances panels to review mitigating circumstances appropriately leading to consistent recommendations across the University. Work will also commence shortly by members of the Student Personalised Information (SPI) Project to develop an appropriate central IT system to enable students to submit their mitigating circumstances electronically and enable storing of this information consistently and in line with GDPR requirements. We hope that this IT system will be fully functional from the start of the academic year 2019/20.

Guidance to departments on the revised mitigating circumstances policy has been sent out at the end of July 2018 to enable them to plan for the implementation of the new mitigating circumstances policy for any mitigating circumstances affecting students’ studies in the academic year 2018/19. The old mitigating circumstances policy will still apply to any mitigating circumstances submitted by students affecting their studies in the academic year 2017/18. i.e. undergraduate students sitting first further sits and re-sits in September 2018 and postgraduate taught students who are considered by final Boards of Examiners in September/October or November 2018. For any queries in relation to the new mitigating circumstances policy and guidance to staff and students, please contact Claudia Gray at C dot Gray dot 1 at warwick dot ac dot uk in the first instance.

Course Approval Update August 2018

The new course approval process has now been in operation since October 2017. A new Course Proposal Scrutiny Panel was established in summer 2017 comprising a representative from each academic department. Since then, the Course Proposal Scrutiny Panel has approved 91 courses on behalf of the Senate; 29 proposals are currently being considered.

The process review of the way the University approves courses included an introduction of an online workflow. The online system is currently still under development with TRIBAL (the external provider of our student records system, SITS). Further communications will be sent to academic and professional service departments later this summer to provide an update on the new timescales for implementation.

Following feedback from the use of the course proposal form, there have been amendments made to the form and the amended version is now available on the Course Approval webpages. In an attempt to reduce the timescales of approval, and allow colleagues to plan ahead, we are introducing deadlines for the consideration of proposals. Please see the Course Approval webpages for deadline information.

A full update on the Course Approval process will be communicated to departments in August 2018. If colleagues do have any queries regarding course approval, or would like to meet to discuss potential or draft course proposals, please do not hesitate to contact Geraldine Connelly via the Course approval resource account (courseapproval at warwick dot ac dot uk).

Staff changes in Teaching Quality

Over the last nine months, we have welcomed a series of new colleagues to the Teaching Quality team. These new colleagues represent a much-needed and appreciated source of additional expertise and capacity. In recent weeks we have also had some changes arising from secondments. We are aware how difficult it is monitor incremental staff changes and so append to this newsletter the latest organisation chart for the team. We also offer this very brief summary of areas of staff responsibility in order to assist you in directing your enquiries to colleagues best placed to assist. More information will soon be available on our re-developed website.

Roberta Wooldridge Smith	Team leadership and staffing issues; Academic Governance; Senate; Education Executive; Education Strategy; Academic Continuity
Katharine Gray	TEF; Education Executive; Education Strategy; Education Committee; Academic Quality and Standards Committee; academic department liaison (all);
Dan Derricott	Institutional Teaching & Learning Review; Student Learning Experience and Engagement Committee; Education Experience Monitoring; Student survey strategy & NSS; course approval and information; academic department liaison (all)
Cara Pearson (On secondment to CTE; Interim cover tbc)	Partnerships Committee; partnerships work and related projects; education policy projects
Claudia Gray	Academic Quality & Standards Committee; Examinations & Assessment; Review of Assessment
Clair Henrywood	Board of the Faculty of Arts; Faculty Education Committee; FYBoE; Education projects in the Faculty of Arts; academic departmental liaison (Arts); education policy projects
Martin Mik Moving to LDC wef 1st October	Board of the Faculty of Social Sciences; Faculty Education Committee; FYBoE; Education projects in the Faculty of Social Sciences; academic departmental liaison (Social Sciences); education policy projects
Louise Hasler	Board of the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine; Faculty Education Committee; FYBoE; Education projects in the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine; academic departmental liaison (Science, Engineering and Medicine); education policy projects
Geraldine Connelly	Course approval and information; Education Committee
Katharine Stratford	Education Experience Monitoring; PSRB liaison and review; Student Learning & Educational Experience Committee
Gabriella Bersanetti	Partnerships work and related projects; Partnerships Committee
Kam Johal	Student complaints; OIA casework; Fitness to Practise; Continuation of Registration cases (UG); Academic Appeals Review
Carla Stafford	Personalised support for Senior Assistant Registrar; committee support; team support
Anne Molloy & Abigail Taylor (jobshare)	Personalised support for Deputy Academic Registrar; team support; committee support
Helen Hotten	Academic governance support; committee memberships; Faculty Board support