Managing the disruption to your Assessments and Assessment Boards

As part of the dispute over the outcome of the national pay negotiations for 2022/23, University and College Union (UCU) has called on its members at 145 UK universities, including City, to take industrial action in the form of a Marking and Assessment Boycott from Thursday 20 April 2023.

What this means for you

The impact of this action will vary across the University and will be very limited on some programmes.

  • If your results have been impacted by the Marketing and Assessment Boycott, your School will be in touch to advise you of this.
  • If your School does not get in touch about this, your marks have not been impacted.

How we are managing the impact

Our main priority has been to minimise the disruption to your education and student experience, and we have been working with colleagues across the University and Students’ Union to develop our plans, including creating a new University Framework for Managing Disruption to Assessments and Assessment Boards Impacted by the Marking and Assessment Boycott 2022/23.

This framework means if your results are impacted by the Boycott and you are eligible, Assessment Boards can assign you an interim calculated mark or make provisional progression or award decisions until a final decision can be made. The Assessment Board will assign these if appropriate, so you don’t need to apply for them. You can find information about these and whether they apply to you below, and more detail in our Assessment FAQs.

Who is eligible for interim marks

If you are eligible for interim marks and they are applied to you, your School will let you know.

To be eligible for this:

  • We must have a reliable indicator of performance on that specific module to date or performance from a past assessment period and;
  • You must have completed all assessments.

Some programmes may not be eligible, such as those with professional body requirements (PSRB).

If you are eligible for interim marks

Before your final marks are available:

  • The Assessment Boards will calculate your interim marks. This is normally based on:
    • The marks which you have already achieved in the module to date, where at least 40% of module marks are available; or
    • The marks which you have already achieved on other modules, where at least 60 credits have been completed in your current programme stage or where you have a complete previous programme stage with which to base an interim mark on.
  • Your School will let you know what your interim marks are and that they have been calculated in that way.

Once your final marks become available:

  • Assessment Boards will reconvene and agree final marks as soon as practically possible.
  • Your School will email your final marks to you.

Your marks and/or award Classification will not move down, so you will retain whichever is higher of the interim mark/award and the actual mark.

If you are not eligible for interim marks

Before your final marks are available

Assessment Boards will have additional flexibility to make the provisional decisions below:

  • Pass/award – where you have already passed each module beyond any doubt, i.e., you have met the pass requirements of all modules, the Board may provisionally progress you to the next programme stage or provisionally award you (decisions on award classifications may not be possible at this stage).
  • Fail – where you have failed the programme stage beyond any doubt, i.e., even passes at 100% in the missing assessments would not be sufficient to turn a fail into a pass, the Board can provisionally agree a fail decision. You may, however, be eligible for an exit award.
  • Insufficient information (students progressing to the next year/stage of their programme) – where your current outcome is ‘fail’ due to missing marks, but there is outstanding unmarked work that could enable you to progress to the next programme stage, the Board will not return a ‘fail’ decision.

Where marks are missing, the Board will advise you that you may need to resit that assessment, so that you can prepare as soon as possible. When your actual marks become available, it may be that you have passed some of these assessments and your resit will no longer be necessary. The Board will email you to confirm more detailed results and resit decisions as soon as possible.

  • Insufficient information (students to be awarded and Graduate from their programme) – where your current outcome is ‘fail’ due to missing marks, but there is outstanding unmarked work that could enable you to be awarded, the Board will not return a ‘fail’ decision. The Board can agree a provisional general award to be made to permit you to attend Graduation so you can celebrate with your cohort but we will not be able to present you with your certificate on the day.

Where marks are missing, the Board will advise you that you may need to resit that assessment so that you can prepare as soon as possible. When your actual marks become available, it may be that you have passed some of these assessments and your resit will no longer be required. The Board will email you to confirm more detailed results and resit decisions as soon as possible.

Once your final marks become available:

  • Assessment Boards will reconvene to discuss more detailed marks and decisions, as soon as practically possible.
  • Your School will email your final marks and decisions to you as soon as possible.

Resits

To make sure you have enough time to prepare, the Boards will let you know about any resits you may need to take. Once your final marks become available it may transpire that you have passed some of these assessments and your resit will no longer be required. The Boards will email you to confirm this as soon as possible.

Graduation

If you are due to graduate in July 2023 and your marks are impacted by the Boycott, the Board can agree a provisional general award to be made to permit you to attend Graduation so you can celebrate with your cohort, but we will not be able to present you with your certificate on the day. Once your award is agreed, you will then receive your certificate – you can choose to receive it by post or to collect it from campus.

As above, the Board will advise you that you may need to resit that assessment so that you can prepare as soon as possible. Once your final marks become available it may transpire that you have passed some of these assessments and your resit will no longer be required. The Boards will email you to confirm this as soon as possible.

Further information

You can find more details about the mitigations and interim marks in our Assessment FAQs on the Student Hub.