Assessment & Feedback 

The University Regulations around marks and credits can seem complex, and a guide to how they affect you is set out below – please read it carefully.  

Regulations for each programme of study are available here

Our Foundation Programme is assessed by a wide range of different forms of assessment, to prepare you for what you will encounter on your degree programme.. Modules are designed to build up skills and knowledge throughout the semester to prepare you for these assessments. 

It is very important that you complete every piece of assessed work set.  If you do not, you cannot pass the Foundation year, no matter what marks you get in the work you do submit. You must hand in all essays or reports as well as attending and making an attempt at all tests, presentations and exams.

To complete the Foundation Programme, you need to obtain 120 credits from a combination of 10 or 20 credit modules. You must pass every module. To automatically progress onto your degree programme (for students who are enrolled on a degree with Foundation Year) you must normally obtain a weighted average of 60 across the programme as a whole, although some degrees ask for a higher score or may set a threshold for individual modules. 

Students who pass with a mean weighted grade of 40 or more but who do not meet the relevant progression threshold will be able to apply for further study at other higher education institutions following the June examination board.

The assessments are scheduled to be both manageable and to give a realistic expectation of how you will be required to work when you progress to Level 1 and beyond.  Therefore you will often be working towards a number of assessments simultaneously and we encourage you to develop the time management and organisation skills to juggle multiple deadlines.  

Module assessment

The form and weighting of assignments within a module can be found in the module handbook.  We aim to offer students a variety of forms of assessment across the programme, both to test proficiency in different skills and to prepare you for the full range of assessment types you are likely to encounter in the future.

• To complete a module, you must attempt every required piece of assessment 

• To pass the module, you must get an overall weighted average of 40 across that module

• You do not have to pass every assignment to pass a module, but marks below 40 will pull down your overall mark for the module

• If you have any questions about the progression requirement for your programme, please check with your Personal Tutor 

• During Semester 1 your personal tutor will share with you a Weighted Mean Grade calculator which will help you to keep track of the marks you have received so far and the grades that you need to achieve to stay on track for your progression threshold.  They will talk this through with you and show you how to use it to support your learning and development.

Coursework is a common form of assessment within DLL and at the University of Sheffield. It includes essays, reports, projects, and other written assessments. 

• Coursework assessments will have a maximum length expressed as a number of words.  This does not include in-text citations or your references list, but it does include quoted material. We understand that it may not always be possible to calculate or stick to this precisely, so we do not penalise you for exceeding it by a small amount (up to 10%). However, you should not simply add this on to the word count - think of it more as a margin for error.  Any material included after the word count has been exceeded will not be marked. There is no minimum word count, but you should use the full amount available if you can; work that is significantly under-length is unlikely to include enough material to get good marks. All DLL assessments are designed to be completed within the stated word count and are marked accordingly - we will not expect more than you can say within the set limit.

• All coursework must be referenced using the Harvard system as set out in the Library Guide 

• There are no specific rules for the presentation or layout of work that is submitted electronically. However, you should ensure that your work is easy to read by using appropriate punctuation and line breaks between paragraphs. A sans serif font is recommended (12 point Arial works well).

In order to help you prepare for all the types of assessment you are likley to encounter on your degree programme, there will be a limited number of exams on the foundation year, at least one of which will be an in-person, formally invigilated exam, timetabled through the University's central system.

You will be notified at the beginning of the module if there are exams as part of the assessment.  Exams normally take place during the exam period.  It is your responsibility to make sure you are available during the entire examination session including the re-sit period in August. Further detailed information can be found here: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/exams 

Exam periods in 2021-22 are:

• For Autumn Semester modules: Monday 16th January - Saturday 4th February 2023

• For Spring Semester and academic year modules: Monday 22nd May - Saturday 10th June 2023

• Resits: Monday 7th August - Friday 25th August 2023

Detailed Exam Timetables, including dates, times and venues, will be provided here as they become available. This is usually a few weeks before the exam period (less in August) which is why it is important to be available for the entirety of all the exam periods.

Students are required to take their UCard to all exams for identification.

Calculators are permitted in some exams but must be approved in advance by the University and have an ‘approved’ sticker. Visit our calculator checker for more information. 

Special exam arrangements 

Some students may be entitled to special arrangements - for example for health or disability reasons. Students who require adjustments for exams such as extra time, accessible rooms, or specialist computer software must get a formal learning support plan via the Disability and Dyslexia Support Service (DDSS).  Adjustments cannot be made for exams if a student does not have a plan in place.  Please note that it can take several months to put a plan in place, so the sooner you start the process, the better.  Sometimes we hold 'mock’ exams during the semester which take place in classroom time.  It is not possible to replicate special exam arrangements, but students are given the option of a ‘take away’ paper so that they can complete it in the way that is most useful to them. 

If you have a Learning Support Plan from Disability and Dyslexia Support Services, you may have been issued with a sheet of yellow stickers that you can attach to your exam script to alert the marker.  If you complete your exams on a computer, you must indicate if you have yellow stickers by affixing a sticker or typing the wording from the sticker at the top of your work.  If you do not attach a sticker/include wording, special consideration will not be given when marking the work. See: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/disability/useful-info/yellow-stickers

Presentation

Getting the presentation of coursework assignments right is important, and will help you develop your skills in organising and presenting written arguments and data.  When submitting assignments, please follow carefully any specific guidelines outlined in the assessment brief.

Submission

Assessment deadlines are set out clearly in individual module handbooks. For most assessments, you will be given an assessment brief with detailed instructions.  If there is any uncertainty as to how the work should be submitted, it is your responsibility to ask your module tutor.  The definitive source of any assessment deadline is the module handbook.

• Most of your assessed work will be submitted electronically via a Turnitin link on your module Blackboard site.

• Your work can be submitted in a number of formats, including as a word .doc or a .pdf file

• IMPORTANT: The file name that you type in when you submit via Turnitin must consist of your student number.  The only other text you should include in this is 'Yellow Sticker' if you are entitled to yellow stickers. 

• If you do not do this we will not be able to mark your work anonymously.

• Your work is marked anonymously wherever possible, so you must not include your name anywhere in your work or filename

• Turnitin will check your work for matches with other students' work, published work and websites. Provided you have quoted, cited and referenced correctly (see under 'Academic Citizenship') you have nothing to fear from this.

• Please take a look at the guidance on how to submit a Turnitin Assignment. 

Submission instructions if you have Yellow Stickers

If you have a learning plan from Disability and Dyslexia Support Services (DDSS), you may have been issued with a sheet of yellow stickers that you can attach to your work to alert the marker.  For paper submissions, simply affix the sticker to the top of the front cover of your work. For electronic submissions, please type ‘Yellow Sticker’ as a prefix to the title of your assignment in the ‘Submission Title’ field and also type ‘Yellow Sticker’ in the comments box on the assignment submission page in Turnitin.  More detailed guidance about how to submit work electronically is available here: www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/disability/useful-info/yellow-stickers

Deadlines for assessed coursework

Deadlines will generally be 16.00 (4 pm) on the deadline day.  Work handed in after this will be counted as late. It is your responsibility to manage and plan your workload and you are strongly advised not to leave things until the last minute, as problems with your computer or your internet access are not classed as extenuating circumstances. If there is a problem with Blackboard or Turnitin, please email your work to your tutor. Provided you upload an identical version to Turnitin as soon as possible, the date of receipt of the emailed work will be counted as the submission date. Your work will not be marked until it is uploaded to Turnitin. Before uploading work to Turnitin it is very important that you check that it is the correct, finished, version. In most cases you will not be able to resubmit it once it has been uploaded.

Penalties for late submission

Managing your time to meet your deadlines is an important skill for success both at University and in future employment. It is important, therefore, that you do your best to hand in all work on time. If you submit work to be marked after the deadline your mark will be reduced by 5% for each working day the work is late after the deadline. A working day includes working days within standard vacation times. For example, if a submission date falls on the last day before the start of the Easter vacation, penalties would start to be applied from the following working day and not from the first day following the vacation. If you submit your work more than 5 days late, your work will not be marked and it will be recorded as Not Complete, meaning that you will have to pay a fee to resit it. 

This procedure allows you to put the challenging personal circumstances affecting your academic performance on record, so that they can be considered at the relevant examination board. Not all difficult or distressing events will be considered in this way. The system is intended to cover events where there is:

• a demonstrable adverse effect on your academic performance;

• a reasonable case that the circumstances were not foreseeable and/or preventable; and

• timely disclosure of extenuating circumstances; all submissions must be made as close as is reasonably possible to the time the problems arose. 

You will need to submit your request via the DLL Extensions & Extenuating Circumstances Form.

The following guidelines will be consulted when considering extenuating circumstances requests, please read them carefully.

Read the Extenuating Circumstances guidance

Extenuating circumstances must be requested by the following deadlines so that they can be considered by the DLL Extenuating Circumstances panel, which makes recommendations to the Board of Examiners.

Semester 1 - Friday 9 February 2024

Semester 2 - Friday 7 June 2024

The extension procedure allows you to request a short extension to a coursework deadline in order to manage short / minor illnesses, or other minor life events.

You can self-certify one request per semester (this may cover a number of deadlines in the affected period) and you will need to request and have this approved by your department, giving a short explanation about why you need an extension, but you will not need to submit evidence. You must put your extension request in as early as possible and at least two working days before the coursework deadline. 

If approved by your department, you will be granted an extension of up to seven calendar days. The department will let you know the outcome of the request, with a new date as appropriate, within one to two working days of the extension request.

This procedure is designed to support you with your personal circumstances, but requesting numerous extensions may not be beneficial to your progress and multiple extension requests may prompt a further discussion with your department and referral to the relevant support.  

If you require an extension of more than seven calendar days or have made a self-certification extension request, your department may require you to have a support appointment and/or to submit evidence. 

• This procedure applies to individual coursework. If the request relates to a piece of group coursework/assessment, then you must contact your department for advice as soon as possible.

• You should request extensions in advance of the specified deadline.

• You will need to request an extension using the DLL Extensions & Extenuating Circumstances Form and provide a short explanation about why you need an extension; this will allow us to identify if you need additional support. 

• Students with a Learning Support Plan in place, allowing for an adjustment of extensions to coursework deadlines, must complete the extension request form and tick that they have an LSP.

• If you are not able to submit for your extended deadline, you will be subject to the University’s late submission penalties if they apply.

• Students who cannot submit for the extended deadline and who feel they have extenuating circumstances which mean a late penalty should not apply, should follow the EC procedure.

Read the Extension Procedure guidance

Religious Holidays and Examinations: If you are not able for religious reasons (e.g. Sabbath, Festival, Friday Prayers etc.) to take examinations on any day on which examinations may be set during the year (including Saturdays but not Sundays), you should complete a Request for Religious Observance Form by October 30th each year. 

Please note that once examination timetables have been set it is difficult for alterations to be made. 

Ramadan: Muslim students fasting during Ramadan are expected to continue with normal work and study. If you wish to discuss an individual situation, please contact the Muslim Chaplaincy. 

Regulations for the Foundation Year allow up to three attempts in total at assessment for each module that has been failed.  Unlike at Level 1 and beyond, resit marks on the Foundation Year are not capped.  A resit does not 'use up' an attempt if you have extenuating circumstances. If you need to resit any assessments, we will let you know by email after the exam board.  Please note an additional fee is charged for taking resit assessments unless you have extenuating circumstances for the assessment in question. Details of fees can be found here. Most resits - exams and coursework - take place over the summer. It is therefore very important that you are available at this time.

You are only eligible to re-sit assessment when you have failed a module.  If you fail a module, you are entitled to re-sit only those elements of assessment for which you did not receive a mark of 40 or more.  Any assessment that has not been submitted by five working days after the submission date will be recorded as not complete. You will then be recorded as not complete for the module and will not get credit for that module. You will have to re-sit the not-completed element of assessment in order to complete the module.

If you pass the module (i.e. attempt all elements of assessment and obtain a weighted average of 40 or more), you are not eligible to re-sit any part of the module.

Under University regulations, you are allowed only two re-sits of modules that are recorded as fail or not-complete. If you have extenuating circumstances and you are recorded as not-assessed, this does not apply.

Re-sits for exams, and many coursework and other resits take place in the University resit period.  It is therefore very important that you are available for the whole of this period. Re-sits for failed or not-complete elements of assessment will be set at this point, and will be different from the original assignments. Students who are recorded as ‘not assessed (NA)’ because their non-completion is accepted as being the result of extenuating circumstances will usually complete the original assignment except where this is an unseen examination or a substitute for one.

Grading criteria

All your work will be marked according to standard grading criteria.  Most coursework (esasays, reports, projects, etc.) is marked according to the Foundation Year Assessment Criteria for Written Coursework.  Where different marking criteria are used for specific assessments, these will be provided along with the assessment brief.

Marking 

The majority of University assessments (including examinations) are marked anonymously.  This is to ensure the greatest possible fairness in the assessment process, and is a University regulation. Please ensure that you follow the guidelines for presentation of assignments and that your name does not appear in your submitted work, including on any electronic file names.   

External examiners

The University of Sheffield employs external examiners to oversee every programme of study undertaken by its students, in common with all other universities in the UK.  

Our current External Examiners are:

• Wendy Ashall (University of Sussex) Social Sciences, ALCS

• Michelle Deininger (Cardiff University) Humanities

• Steve Russell (Aston University) Natural Sciences, Health, Maths and Stats

Every piece of assessed work that counts towards your qualification will be marked by an internal examiner and may be second-marked or subject to moderation, depending upon the type of assessment.  Both the first and second markers are members of University staff.  An external examiner is usually employed at another university, but is also appointed by the University of Sheffield to impartially oversee the assessment of a course or parts of one or more taught courses. This allows the University to be sure that its assessment processes work well, that the appropriate marks are awarded and that departments benefit from suggestions for improvement from academics with expertise in the subject in other universities.  Prior to the February Exam  Board, there is an opportunity for students to meet with the External Examiners.  Each year the External Examiners submit a report and these will be shared with you via Student-Staff Committee.

One of the best ways to learn is by hearing others’ reflections and thoughts on our own understandings. And since feedback is simply any kind of response to the work you do, you get feedback all the time in many different forms:

• a tutor reacts to a question you raise in class

• another student disagrees with you about the best book on a specific topic

• you discuss your views on a topic with others in a seminar class

• the comments on your essay ask for development of a specific argument

At university you will get feedback in formal and informal ways; some of it will be given alongside assessment and grade and some of it will relate to unassessed work. You may hear these types of feedback referred to as formative and summative.

You’ll notice that many instances of feedback occur frequently in your day-to-day studies, and it’s important to recognise that formal feedback on assessment is just one particularly important and focused instance of this more general learning process.

Formalised feedback is a communication you can potentially learn from, just like all the others, but it is like any genuine communication: it requires a response. You wouldn’t expect to learn from a lecture if you didn’t think about its contents. So you will only make the most of feedback by working to turn it into ideas for future action. Create a Feedback Action Plan to have a go at working out how to transform your feedback into action.

You can reflect on what the feedback you receive tells you about what you have learned, how you have expressed it, how well you have demonstrated it and how you have presented it. For more information on the reflective learning process, visit the 301 Reflective Practice pages. 

Sometimes you might want to seek additional clarification to follow up on your feedback and you can do this in a number of ways: 

• Ask your module or personal tutor for a meeting to discuss your feedback

• Discuss your feedback with your peers - did they receive similar comments?  What can you learn from their feedback?

• Book onto a workshop at 301 or MASH to learn more about specific areas of your work