Penalties
Knowing how to manage your time, write succinctly and provide a complete and comprehensive piece of work to a strict deadline are skills you will develop at University.
In the interests of equity, fairness, and transparency we have strict rules around deadlines and the quality or quantity of work submitted and have clear penalties for any student where these rules are not followed.
All work submitted late (including supporting documents to support assessment), without an approved claim of Exceptional Circumstances affecting Assessment, will have marks deducted for each day (or part of each day) that the work is late, up to a total of five days, including weekends and bank holidays, e.g. if work is awarded a mark of 70 out of 100, and the work is up to one day late, the final mark is 60.
After five days, the work is marked at zero. Note, however, that the penalty cannot result in a mark less than zero.
Submitted up to 1 hour late - 5% deducted from mark
Submitted 1 day late - 10% deducted from mark
Submitted 2 days late - 20% deducted from mark
Submitted 3 days late - 30% deducted from mark
Submitted 4 days late - 40% deducted from mark
Submitted 5 days late - work marked at zero
The penalty for submitting late for a module marked on a pass/fail basis is a fail.
For online open exams, submissions received up to 30 minutes after the deadline will be accepted but will incur a 5% mark penalty. This penalty may be waived in the event of a successful exceptional circumstances claim. Submissions received more than 30 minutes after the deadline will be treated as non-submissions and will normally receive a mark of zero. In this case, a successful exceptional circumstances claim would result in a further assessment attempt ‘as if for the first time’.
Please be aware that marks visible through Turnitin Feedback Studio (on the VLE) are raw marks for the work itself. Penalties will not be deducted from this raw score and the mark provided is subject to the ratification process. Your final mark with all deductions/penalties applied can be accessed through your e:Vision ‘view module marks’ section. Marks on e:Vision remain subject to the ratification process prior to the Board Examiners meeting and may occasionally be subject to change.
What should I do if there has been an unforeseen event on the day of submission?
In the event of an emergency arising when an assignment is due for submission or you are travelling to attend an examination (e.g. delayed in traffic), students should contact the Department’s Student Services team by telephone immediately who will advise of the most appropriate action to be taken (01904 321321).
You can apply through the Exceptional Circumstances Policy for the late penalty to be waived but you would need to provide supporting evidence for this to be considered.
Failure to submit
If you fail to submit an assessment by five days after the deadline or fail to attend an examination, with no approved claim of Exceptional Circumstances affecting Assessment, a mark of zero will be awarded. You may be given the opportunity for reassessment. However, the zero will be used to calculate your award outcome, and if the examination or assessment missed is already a re-sit or reassessment to redeem an initial failure, no further reassessment opportunities will be available without proof of exceptional circumstances.
If you are struggling to meet deadlines, submit a piece of work or will miss an exam due to personal circumstances you will need to inform the University as soon as possible and apply for Exceptional Circumstances.
For further information, please see the Exceptional Circumstances section of the Handbook.
Assessment word limits
Word limits are prescribed for each specific assessment and are published on the module’s Assignment Guideline.
Assignments will be marked up to the word limit (plus 10%) and marking will cease once the word limit is exceeded.
Everything in the main body of the text (i.e. Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion and Conclusion) apart from appropriate tables and figures is included in the word limit.
Everything before the main body of the text (i.e. Abstract, Acknowledgements, and Contents etc.) and after the main text (i.e. References, Appendices etc.) is not included in the word limit.
Examination scripts that deviate from the rubric
In the event that you attempt more than the requested number of questions in an open or closed exam paper, all questions attempted will be marked and the set of questions with the highest marks that conform to the instructions on the front of the exam paper will be used to calculate your final examination mark.
Unsafe practice
For professionally regulated programmes: in any assessment, a failure to identify a serious problem, or an answer that would cause a patient/client harm, will result in failure of the assessment.