Advice & Support – Academic Advice and Guidance

Advice on steps to take if you want to make an informal or formal complaint, and provide support through that process.
Help with responding to allegations of cheating/collusion/plagiarism.
Help with matters relating to examination/assessment performance as addressed by the Procedure for the Review of Assessment Decision.
Advice on submission of mitigating circumstances with supporting documents(s) (e.g. medical evidence) in the event of your academic performance being affected.
Assist you in submitting appearls against assessment decision.
Explain how to proceed with changing or leaving your course, and discuss what options may be available to you before you make a decision.
Liasie with University departments and staff on your behalf
Identification of other sources of help and support and referral to them.
Advice on how to raise matters that are causing concern on your course.

For some programmes there are no strict attendance rules in place, but of course it is in your best interest to attend whenever possible as course success can definitely be linked to attendance.  For some programmes where there is EU funding in place, registers are kept and if your attendance is not recorded your bursary payments may be affected.
However, there may be times when you have to miss a class.  If this is just one occasion, you don’t need to do anything.  Simply attend the following week, and speak to the tutor to collect any handouts etc that you many have missed.  If you are going to miss more than one session, then you should inform all of your tutors and discuss the impact that this may have on your studies.
Sometimes ‘in-class assessments’ are arranged and if it is likely that you will miss one of these, then you should explain this to your lectuere and you will need to fill in a mitigation form.

You should be aware that late assignments are considered as ‘fail’, unless you have valid mitigating circumstance to support late submission.  If you cannot meet an assignment deadline, for example because of illness, you should complete a mitigation form, attach evidence to support your claim, and sumit it to your School Reception.  A mitigation panel sits before the assessment boards and will consider your circumstances.

If you fail an assignment you will be informed that you have been ‘referred’.  This means that you will have to do another assignment at the next possible opportunity (normally the following semester or during the Summer if it is a second semester assignment).  When you re-do the assignment your grade will be capped at the pass mark (usually 40%), but this does not affect the grade that you get for any other assignment in the module.  So, for example, your module has two equally-weighted assignments, and you get 62% in one and fail the other, you will repeat the failed assignment, and if you pass it this time you’ll get 40% maximum.  This will be averaged with your 62% for the other, giving you 51% overall for the module.
If you had mitigating circumstances that caused you to fail an assignment and submitted a mitigation form with evidence for consideration on time for the mitigation panel you will more than likely be classed as ‘deferred’.  In this case when you re-do the assignment you will be awarded the full mark that you achieve.

If you fail a referral you will be classed as ‘fail and repeat’.  This means that you have to do the WHOLE module again, with attendance, and submit all the assignments again (even those you might have passed before for that module previously).  Part-time students may have a problem fitting in a repeat module in the current studies timetable and in this case you must seek academic advice from your Programme Leader.
Another problem caused by fail and repeats is that each module failed and repeated is classed as a new set of credits - so if you have failed and have to repeat three 20 credit modules these credits will be added to the 120 credits you have already studies, i.e. in this situation at one level you will have studied 180 credits.  The rules do not allow this - the maximum that can be studied at any level is 160 credits and once 160 credits is exceeded there is an automatic strike out.  In this case you would be withdrawn from your course.

If you write to your Programme Board to request them to consider an ‘interim aware’ you may find that the University may be able to process an award for the credits accrued.
Usually:
120 credits will allow the award of Higher Education Certificate
240 credits will allow the award of Higher Education Diploma
300 credits will allow the award of Ordinary Degree