Hi everyone,

I know that this time is incredibly difficult for all of us and I hope you’re reaching out, where possible, to friends and family and those around you to check if they ok or need support. Please make sure you check our socials to see what we are doing as your Full-time officer team. We are working hard on all areas of your student experience. Please do also keep in touch with us via social media where we release updates around issues such as graduation, international students, Postgrads, accommodation and welfare. For more support visit the Get Connected section of our website.

On the note of support, I am sure that you all have questions, worries and anxieties on what is happening around your assessments. I wanted to take this opportunity to give you some more information about what to expect in the coming weeks and what information you should already have around your assessments.

You will have heard in the last few weeks that there are some major changes to the rest of the academic year, and the thing to stress here is that this is the same for a lot of universities up and down the country. The following is important to note for UEA:

1. Summative assessment will be delivered online.
2. There is no more undergraduate on-campus teaching this academic year, instead everything will be delivered online through virtual sessions that your lecturer should be holding.
3. A safety net approach to assessment has been introduced. This is to make sure that your final year is not adversely affected by the current circumstances but also that your workload is reduced.
4. Your schools will be writing a plan for the rest of the academic year. This is being done as we speak and this means that some schools will know more about assessment than others at this point. We want to make sure that every student knows how their assessment has been changed and what the learning will look like for the rest of the academic year before Easter and we are working hard with the University to get this through.  

The Safety Net Approach:

I also wanted to take the opportunity to talk more on this, as I am receiving a large amount of emails from students asking me about this.

Foundation and 1^st Year – Not much will change, apart from some assessment that may be cut from your course this year because the learning outcome has already been met in a different piece of work. This is to help reduce workload for you in the period and also the workload for academics having to mark and work remotely and get things back to you.

2^nd Year (Including integrated masters) – For second year students there will be less reduced assessment because the year counts, but you will still be required to complete assessments online. If you have an exam it will be a 24 hour open online exam. This means you can have resources around you and a whole 24 hours to help you complete it. If you are currently working on coursework, please remember that you can also submit a 10 day extension. This does not require medical evidence as this has been stripped from the procedure at this time. You must pass all the core modules and get an average mark for the year of 40% and pass modules worth 80 credits in total.

3^rd Year – For third year students the process is similar to the above. There will be less movement to reduce assessment, but where possible the university will reduce the workload. If you have an exam it will be a 24 hour open online exam. This means you can have resources around you and a whole 24 hours to help you complete it. If you are currently working on coursework, please remember that you can also submit a 10 day extension. This does not require medical evidence as this has been stripped from the procedure at this time. You must pass all the core modules and get an average mark for the year of 40% and pass modules worth 80 credits in total.

When calculating your degree classification the university will look at the average marks from both 19/20 and 20/21. This means that if your average mark was higher this year then the university will not count your lower average mark last year and only use your higher average calculation. This really means that you cannot get any lower than last year’s average mark, which means it is beneficial to get some assessment done this year if you are already doing better than the previous year, or you can use your assessment this year to get a higher mark.

 

This is complicated stuff. As we go forward and schools release more information around your own assessment this will become clearer. If you have some assessments dropped then it will likely be due to the learning outcomes already being assumed to have been met. Please check with your course leader or module organiser if you have any issues. Marking will be adjusted. For example, if you cannot do a presentation in the way you used to whilst on campus, the marking criteria will be adjusted.

I will continue to update you regularly on assessment and want to get some faculty specific updates. We are working on FAQ’s for you and so please do send your questions to me so I can get some answers from the University.

If you have any questions please do give me an email [email protected]