An update on assessment regulations

Dear Michael,

This is an incredibly challenging time for all of us, and we appreciate that you will be anxious about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown on your degree. Many of you still have several months of your studies ahead, and significant project work to complete. Thank you for your patience while we have worked out how to best ensure that you are not academically disadvantaged during this period of remote teaching and assessment. Our key objective has been to do everything we can to ensure that your studies are not negatively impacted by the current crisis, while also upholding the value and integrity of our awards.

The University has now approved exceptional classification regulations for taught postgraduate students, and these can be viewed online (PDF).

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Taught module assessment completed at summer exam boards

The exceptional assessment regulations that were circulated earlier this month applied to taught module assessment that will be considered by the exam boards taking place in the summer. For some of you on 60-credit Postgraduate Certificate degrees or 120-credit Postgraduate Diploma degrees, that will mark the completion of assessment for your programme.

For others, those summer exam boards will consider the results for your taught modules. However, an exam board in the autumn will be responsible for classifying you - once you have completed the 60-credit Masters’ Project or Dissertation. For your taught modules, you will not suffer any academic disadvantage on performance in taught module assessments completed after Sunday 15 March 2020. Further details on how these calculations will be applied will be sent out in early May.

These regulations also allow for a certain number of credits of taught modules to be discounted at classification, if those modules could not be completed or were affected by extenuating circumstances.

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Dissertation or project assessment completed at autumn exam boards

However, the 60-credit Masters Project or Dissertation is a different kind of module. It marks the final research stage of your masters’ programme, and is normally completed by the end of summer. It is what marks out a masters’ degree and gives it value to employers and postgraduate research programmes.

For that reason, we cannot substitute the marks from your taught modules in place of that component. Instead, we are committed to doing everything we can to support you to complete the Project or Dissertation remotely, to do your best work, and to graduate and progress to the next stage of your career or studies.

We understand that many of you may have needed to make significant changes to the scope and content of your project. Some of you will have been expecting to work in labs or other facilities on campus that are no longer accessible, and it is frustrating that your studies over the summer will now look very different. However, Schools have been working hard to help you to adapt your project so that it can be completed remotely, and that it meets the learning outcomes of your degree programme.

Your supervisor will guide and support you in this work across the summer period. We may also be able to allow some flexibility on deadlines or word limits to allow you to complete the project successfully. In a very few cases, this may not have been possible, and some of you may need to defer completion of the project until you can access facilities and resources on campus. Queries about how this affects you individually should be addressed to your programme director, or supervisor.

Whatever position you are in, employers and postgraduate research programmes will be sympathetic to the conditions under which you have had to complete this project, and the resilience you have shown in doing so. You can view the supplementary exceptional regulations for the 60-credit Dissertation/Project online (PDF).

For FAQs related to PGT assessment, please go to the Student Services website.

Best wishes and stay safe,

The University of Nottingham