Assessment and feedback

The University places a great deal of importance on high quality assessment and feedback. These are integral to the provision of high-quality learning and teaching and successful student achievement. Assessment and feedback are managed in accordance with our assessment regulations and feedback policies. We hope that assessment and feedback support your ongoing learning and development and enable you to achieve your programme or module learning outcomes.

Students will normally be provided with feedback within one to two weeks of the submission deadline or assessment date. This may include a provisional grade or mark. For end of module examinations or an equivalent significant task (e.g. an end of module project) feedback will normally be provided within three weeks. This will include a provisional grade or mark.

Feed-forward may also be used. This comprises information which is similar to feedback but is provided in advance of an assessment task to support student learning and development prior to completion of the assessment. Feed-forward is considered to be an important mechanism for supporting student learning.

Each module may include assessment components. Your module coordinator will outline what the assessment components for each module are during the first week (usually the first class) of that module. You can expect clear instructions for each module component and grade related criteria to help you understand how you will be graded. For practice-based modules, end of semester summative portfolios are mostly used. These types of modules include a heavy element of formative feedback (or feed-forward) each week. Your learning on these modules is iterative, and while no marks are awarded for individual pieces of work, you will receive feedback that will help you to improve, and you will be able to build on your learning cumulatively across the semester. Usually you will have an opportunity to re-submit a selection of improved weekly formative work as part of your final summative portfolio, and receive a grade.

Assessment

You will be assessed via a mix of projects, individual and group journalistic assignments, presentations and essays – largely continuous assessment. Assessment Criteria and Grade-Related Criteria will be made available to you to support you in completing assessments. These may be provided in programme handbooks, module specifications, on the virtual learning environment or attached to a specific assessment task. Assessment Criteria are descriptions, based on the intended learning outcomes, of the skills, knowledge or attributes that you need to demonstrate in order to complete an assessment successfully, providing a mechanism by which the quality of an assessment can be measured. Grade-Related Criteria are descriptions of the level of skills, knowledge or attributes that you need to demonstrate in order achieve a certain grade or mark in an assessment, providing a mechanism by which the quality of an assessment can be measured and placed within the overall set of marks.

Feedback

Feedback will be provided in line with our Assessment and Feedback Policy. In particular, you will normally be provided with feedback within one to two weeks for classroom based formative assessment and three weeks after the submission deadline for a summative assessment. This would normally include a provisional grade or mark. For end of module examinations or an equivalent significant task (e.g. an end of module project), feedback will normally be provided within four weeks. The timescale for feedback on final projects and dissertations is six weeks. All grades and provisional until after the Exam Board has approved grades.

Sometimes you may feel that the mark you received does not reflect the work you put into an assignment, or you may disagree with the feedback and marking decisions. We want you all to do well and we try our best to support you to do your best. We do this through the classes, the tutorials, oral feedback, rubrics, one-on-one meetings about your assignments, and written feedback. The more you engage with us, the better you will be quipped to do well in your assignments. When we come to mark your work we mark against that criteria that we introduce to you early on, and we are assessing how well your assignment demonstrates that you met the module’s learning outcomes (these are found in your handbook, as well as discussed in every module).

We are very transparent about the criteria as we want you to do well. However we do not mark you on your effort. Some assignments require more effort to do well, and some require less effort, this is also a part of the variability in abilities. We do mark you on the quality of your work, and we do so against clear criteria. We know how frustrating it is to feel that you put a lot of effort into an assignment and the mark doesn’t reflect that, and we are really conscious of that. So here is some advice:

1. Your final degree mark is not depending on any one module mark – it reflects the work you did throughout the whole degree, so don’t get bogged down by one mark
2. If you are concerned about your performance, first read the feedback you receive – we put a lot of effort in explaining the mark (either through text, rubric, or both), and expect you to review it. We can see when the feedback was accessed.
3. If, after reviewing the feedback you are still not clear with why got the mark you got, we will meet with you to explain that. When you request a meeting you MUST indicate what part of the feedback is unclear.
4. Contacting us to just express your disappointment with the mark and stating that you would like a better mark is not appropriate.
5. If you want us to review the mark, based on the feedback you received (again, specifying what part of the feedback is unclear and or unjust), we can do that. Just remember that when we re-evaluate the marking, marks can go down as much as they can go up, as when there is a dispute, the assignment will be marked independently.
6. All marks are provisional, and will be reviewed by an External Examiner. If you have concerns about your marks, and you can substantiate them, we can ask the External Examiner to review your work. Point 5 applies here too.
7. Lastly, you can appeal marks at the end of the academic year (these will reviewed by an appeal committee outside of the Discipline), however, appeals on the grounds of wishing to have a better grade and without support will not be upheld.