Dear student,

When we made the transition to online delivery of learning and teaching last month, we said we would write to you on 17 April to outline the arrangements for the summer term, which is scheduled to begin on Monday 27 April 2020. In fact, the arrangements for the coming term have already been set out in various communications over the past few weeks, but we thought that it would be helpful if we wrote nonetheless to remind you of the main points.

This e-mail also contains new information about arrangements for graduation this year.

Final Year Undergraduates and Masters students Teaching and learning activities will continue online until the end of term (on 19 June).

Dissertations and course work will be submitted and marked online, and supervision of Masters dissertations will continue online until further notice.

All examinations have been changed to open-book exams (or replaced with alternative forms of assessment), except in a few cases where an exam is necessary in relation to a professional qualification or accredited programme. Your school will let you know if this applies to you.

Open book exams will take place within the formal examination period, 18 May to 5 June, and will be accessed via the module area in Minerva. Online assessments have been designed to be inclusive, and there will be a minimum completion period for each exam of 48 hours (unless other arrangements in relation to a professional qualification or accredited programme apply). This will ensure that all students have sufficient time to complete the exam irrespective of the time zone in which they are located and irrespective of any other personal circumstances which might limit the hours in which they can take the exam.

Your school will tell you everything you need to know about your exams, including when and how to access them, when to return them and how to get support if you encounter any technical issues or have a question about the content of the exam. This information will be communicated to you by the end of the first week of term (that is, no later than Friday 1 May).

Please do make sure that you check all messages from your school and all module announcements in Minerva to ensure that you do not miss important information. It is particularly important that Joint Honours students, and students taking modules from more than one school, should pay attention to all such announcements.

Assessment We have already published information about the basis on which we will assess final-year students. The underlying principle is that we will ensure that students are not disadvantaged in their degree outcomes by the coronavirus outbreak. Details of how this will be done can be found on the dedicated coronavirus website( https://coronavirus.leeds.ac.uk/student-advice/assessment-and-exams-faqs/ ).

Results Results for undergraduate finalists will be published on 6 July in Minerva. There will be resit opportunities, and for this year by exception, finalists will have the choice of resitting in August 2020 or in January 2021.

Graduation With great regret, we have had to postpone the July degree ceremonies. This is because of the continuing uncertainty about when the campus will become available again, and when large gatherings will be possible. Successful candidates will therefore graduate without being present in person (technically known as graduating ‘in absentia’). In practice, this means that you will receive your degree certificates by post rather than at a ceremony in the Great Hall. Certificates and transcripts will be posted in July, as soon as possible after the results are published in Minerva.

We know that the postponement of the ceremonies will come as a great disappointment to you, your families and friends. To make sure you have the opportunity to celebrate your success, and all of your hard work in a very difficult year, we will arrange graduation celebrations in the Great Hall during the 2020-21 academic year once we can be confident about setting new dates. We will give you at least two months’ notice of the new dates so that you can make travel and other arrangements in good time.

Other taught students All timetabled learning and teaching activities for 2019-20 have finished, and no more online classes will take place.

Students in their penultimate year will still have to complete and submit online coursework assessments.

Unless there are professional and accreditation requirements – your school will tell you if this applies to you – all other exams have been cancelled, and you will progress to the next year of study.

If you have not met the usual standards of progression, your School will discuss with you the support you may need in order to achieve success in your next year of study.

You should in any event continue to engage with the content of your programme through Minerva and all other learning resources available to you, in order to be well prepared for next year.

Module enrolment For students progressing into Levels 2 and 3, module enrolment would usually take place in the second week of May. This year we have postponed module enrolment to July and will issue a revised date and more precise information as soon as we can – and in any case not later than the end of May.

Conclusion These are very troubling and unsettling times for millions of people across the world, and we recognise that those of you who are due to complete your studies this year will be particularly anxious. We will continue to communicate with you as clearly as we can – both through institutional communications such as this and through programme and module-specific communications at school level. Above all, please be assured that we will ensure that students are not disadvantaged in their degree outcomes by the coronavirus outbreak.

Finally, I hope that you and your family and friends are safe and well and will remain so at this very troubled time for the world.

With best wishes,

Alan Langlands Vice-Chancellor