MrsCat is undertaking a degree in a year, so far is hitting marks at a 1st level.
Received last piece and only scored 50%, the marking feedback was clearly incorrect (eg: subject x not discussed, there were three paras central to the piece on that very subject, amongst other clearly incorrect comments). It also sounds like this part of course has been pretty poorly delivered – lecturer failing to turn up, cancelling lectures, arriving late and with incorrect information, etc – it’s a big list.

Can any one advise on the correct procedure for challenging this mark as it has knocked her for six, she is currently putting a huge amount of effort into this and it’s very frustrating to see it diminished because someone, seemingly, is not doing their job properly.

Thanks.

There’s normally a fairly clear policy for appealing grades on the particular Uni’s website. Sometimes costs a small amount.

I challenged a mark when I was at uni. Think it cost me 20 pounds. Refunded when I ‘won’ – something like 20% boosted to 75%.

A degree in a year?!!?!?!?!?!?!!? Very impressive!

Where I was we had a couple of modules with inconsistent and poorly marked coursework. The usual procedure was to go to the lecturer in question and ask it to me re-graded, often cc’ing in the module coordinator in any emails.

If that failed then you went higher up the chain, module coordinator, director/head of teaching in the department and the head of the school if everything else didn’t work.

The proper way of doing it should be set out somewhere in the departments handbook or guidelines though. Might be worth having a look around.

The folk higher up the chain don’t want to see students doing badly because of poor teaching or grading, so something should be done. Good luck, hope it gets fixed.

Brilliant – will go scour the website – guess it will be well hidden but that’s a great anecdote to stop her raging about the lecturer.

Impressive – yes she certainly is. Could have been a real high flyer but never had the opportunities explained or the encouragement to go for it. However, she is pretty brilliant at whatever she sets her mind to doing.

Thanks again.

As whatnobeer said – go up the chain. Start with the module convener then progress it to the head of department. It shouldn’t cost to have a script moderated in this way. If you completely disagree with the grade and bear in mind the grade average it’s quite likely it’ll be reconsidered.

I don’t think you’ll get a great deal of traction out of the poor course delivery complaints, IMO, so stick to attempting to get the script re-graded.

Course work is usually moderated or second marked. This may only happen to a small sample in the middle (and those that fail or get firsts). I would go to the lecturer first. Ask if it has been second marked. If not, ask for a second reading and clarification on the grade and reasons for it. You should have a clearer idea at this stage. This informal stage is pretty important, and it may be the case that there was some issue with the course work itself. However, mistakes and oversights do happen given the time constraints on getting grades back to students. If after this stage you are still not happy, follow the formal procedure. From experience, it will be objective and fair.

Also, it is worth noting that if this grade is the difference between a first and a 2.1, and is out of place in relation to their other marks, they may still be awarded a first at the exam boards.

As someone that has marked uni work in the past (used to work as a TA), if someone had a query about their grade/wanted more feedback:

1st step generally they emailed me, I’d respond with an explanation.
2nd step they could come in for a chat about it.

3rd step would be escalation to course organiser/ year admin etc.

Of course I like to think I was quite helpful (never reached 2nd step) – if they won’t respond then you have to escalate.

Mistakes do happen, if you’re marking 40 things the same, you can miss stuff.

And the bad news…. Not all university’s will remark it, I had a piece of work worth 30 credits which is blatantly an incorrect mark I’ve escalated and escalated but the Uni won’t even re-look at it. It’s dragged my whole degree classification down and prevented me from progressing onto my Msc

Today I’m reeling at wasting the last 4 years of my life due to someone else’s screw up.

And the bad news…. Not all university’s will remark it

Perhaps they disliked your grocers’ apostrophe? 😀

Thanks guys – the lecturer has been approached and is, effectively, saying “tough”. So we are looking to escalate the situation. The apathy shown so far is a little disappointing.

A degree in a year?

Really?

I’d be looking at the Calendar for details of how regulations work after approaching the lecturer programe leader and local examinations office.

If there’s an issue with teaching this should be raised separately, and should have been logged at the time I’m presuming it was?

Blaming poor quality teaching for a poor mark will be seen as tenuous at best if there’s been no previous documentation or mention.

Did the lecturer give reasons for the grade re:how the work fitted in to the marking scheme? If the mark is in the system there may be no way for the lecturer to change the grade at this stage and you may need to go through the formal appeals procedure.

Did you find out if the paper was second marked?

Perhaps they disliked your grocers’ apostrophe?

Apples self correct, luckily all my papers were written on a computer not an iPhone 😉

Good points – will add them in.
All issues recorded and reported by more than one student.
We have not had sight of the mark scheme – are we ok to ask for this?

Raouligan – Member
A degree in a year?
Really?

Yep, really – it’s bloody hard work. I have had to resort to cleaning, cooking and ironing, it’s a nightmare, you should see the dust. 😯

General marking schemes should be available. They are usually in the student guides or module guides. If not, ask school office for one. There will usually be a more specific one for each piece of course work but that will not be available. You should have a clear enough idea from the general marking scheme.

May I ask what degree your partner is completing. Is there a possibility that the question/task was just not answered correctly (even if a lot of work was put into it)?

Devil advocate …

Does that mean you have the right to question the expert’s marking/judgement?

Why do you think his/her answer is wrong while yours are right? If s/he is not an expert are you?

Is like a student telling the teacher what to teach innit?

😈

Good luck to your wife. Hopefully she’ll get a satisfactory result.

I should have added that I went to my (very good) lecturer first who told me that once he’d submitted the marks, I needed to go over his head.

Your wife’s lecturer clearly doesn’t have as good an attitude!

@donal – I asked the same question re question & answer, having red and re read the piece it does address the question. It’s more the lecturer’s rationale for the mark in the feedback that is at issue – there are a number of clear and obvious discrepancies. One certainly stands out, and that was the comparison between two roles – lecturer says it was not done and there are 3 paras clearly doing just that.

@Chewk – yeah right! 🙄

Are you sure the feedback you’ve seen is specific to your wife’s script ?

We provide generic feedback that’s made available to all students but would require exceptional circumstances (such as an appeal) to generate comment specific to any one paper

(ours is a big course though, may differ if there’s not too many students involved)

@scardypants – good question, I had assumed so. Off to check.

We provide generic feedback that’s made available to all students but would require exceptional circumstances (such as an appeal) to generate comment specific to any one paper

You don’t provide feedback specific to each submission? 😯

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!
Email just landed from the Student Services Administrator

Hi MrsCat
******** has asked me to get in touch with you regarding your feedback issue for the ************ Presentation. Unfortunately you will not be able to appeal your mark for the module but if you require further feedback the best course of action would be to talk to ********* again and request more in-depth feedback and inform her of your concerns with the current feedback. She should also be able to clear up any confusion you have over the mark weighting. ****** will be back in the University on Monday 24th June so it is best to get in contact with her then, her contact information is below.

What kind of useless organisation has no process of appeal if there are clear errors. Right, where’s my pitchfork and torch…….

What sort of degree programme is a year long?

Marking scheme should be outlined at the start of each module in the handbook?

I’m genuinely terrified that a degree is possible in a year, and would actually be worried about it’s validity?

The fact that basic information hasn’t been provided to students is terrifying.

I’m even more terrified that some places are giving back generic feedback, **** me students are paying more for their degrees and getting less…

I’m even more terrified that some places are giving back generic feedback, **** me students are paying more for their degrees and getting less…

you talking about coursework or exam scripts ?
(I’m on about exam scripts FWIW – some comment written on scripts but, yes, the only formal feedback is generic. I notice, now 😳 , that “Received last piece” might imply coursework – which is a different situation)

The individual lecturer marking the paper is not the right person to engage in this dispute – they will always defend their grading, even if as you suggest there are significant oversights.

She’ll need to follow the accepted procedure, but there should always be an impartial third party to approach. In this instance, considering she’s already been to the marker, try to arrange a meeting with the course leader (if not the lecturer involved), the moderator (or assessment officer for the year group), or head of department. Oh, and meetings are always better than emails!

Indeedy, it is coursework.

You next step is appeal to her head of the board of examiners, and then to the Factuly/School which overseas the department. There will be a formal appeals procedure, but Universities just dont like people taking it up.

Exams shouldn’t have generic feedback as the marking notes should be available to be sent to an external for moderation, I’d have thought?

It should be added after second marking or moderation by an external, certainly I’ve seen that exist for a cohort of 15o granted it was some time ago.

I teach at a Uni – we have to mark and 2nd mark everything. If there is more than 10% discrepancy between the 2 markers for any work it goes to a 3rd marker.

I would personally be unwilling to change a mark if a student approached me and thought the marking was incorrect as this would be seen as unprofessional and inappropriate. It has already been through the course directors, registry has been notified etc and therefore formal channels need to be gone through if there are any concerns.

If I was in your shoes I would approach the course director and see what can be done. Find out how many people reviewed the script and if there is a discrepancy between the marks then you could have a case.

Good luck

Exams shouldn’t have generic feedback as the marking notes should be available to be sent to an external for moderation, I’d have thought?

marking schemes are made available,as are their original scripts which have informal comments on them but also generic comment outlining which bits were generally done well/badly, with some clarification of what “badly” entails

4 of us each appending formal personal messages to 130 students in 2 units for each year of the course – bugger that !

Thanks Marko – we seem to be headed down that route. MrsCat has formally escalated the complaint and it seems that there are a number of other students also doing likewise. There has been no second marking on this module, just that of the original tutor.

There is some interesting feedback from a couple of students who rolled the course over into this year, due to personal circumstances, and their views on this year’s delivery compared to that of last year was more than enlightening. The most polite word I could pick out was shambles, the rest made me blush.

Update: Sheffield Hallam University is a joke!

MrsCat has just been to see the Course Leader, who admitted that they had been badly taught in one module and this has clearly had an effect on their overall grades.

The tutor responsible has now ‘left’ the University but unfortunately, they will not remark the work, there is NO appeal process and no work will be re assessed and that is final.

The module that was scored poorly was made up of 40% submitted papers and 60% for a presentation of practical work. The presentation cannot be moderated because the Uni ‘forgot’ to video the presentation of the work. Not to worry though they have this down to check for all future courses!

The students can, however, make a further presentation to the course board and they will take on board all of the issues that the students have raised and amend the course for next year!

If we had funded this ourselves I would be even more annoyed than I am now, but it seems that, in the face of the Uni staff and administration, we can do absolutely nothing to seek any redress. MrsCat has written detailed and comprehensive feedback to her trust who send a lot of students to the Uni so they need to know what they are getting for their money.

The module grades are now available online, but not confirmed final grades, and it looks as though MrsCat’s colleague has missed a 1st by 5% and she is devastated. If we have calculated correctly MrsCat may just scrape a 1st.

I am immensely proud of her.

who admitted that they had been badly taught in one module and this has clearly had an effect on their overall grades

because the Uni ‘forgot’ to video the presentation of the work

If you have this on paper then take it to Senate. Here is your proof that they are awarding degrees based marks that they know are incorrect and have admitted that it is their fault! They should either remark or discount that module. The Uni I teach at now (and the previous 2) make it official policy that unmoderated work cannot be used to assess the award of a degree. So no second marking = not allowed to contribute to degree mark.

Your local NUS should be able to help out as well and, although I am rarely in favour of this, it may be worth trying some sort of legal action, particularly if there are a number of people in the same boat.

Best of luck.

Thanks Shackleton, will investigate this route – equally ambivalent re the NUS but will check out the Senate route – do you have any info or link I could look at?

Still interested to know what sort of degree you can get in one year….

Sheffield Hallam

There’s your problem, right there 😉

Still interested to know what sort of degree you can get in one year….

It depends on past experience from work or previous qualifications, but I’ve seen a few situations where you can do a shortened degree in a year programme. Pretty much entirely populated by mature students and usually vocational in nature.

@Spawnofyorkshire – spot on – it’s a medical vocational course. I’ll refrain from identifying the exact one until the degree cert is firmly in MrsCat’s hands.
The course includes lecture time, on job training and every other waking moment studying at home. It was like being a single parent for the past 12 month.

What kind of useless organisation has no process of appeal if there are clear errors. Right, where’s my pitchfork and torch…….

I remember when I was at uni, quite a few of us tried to get some marks overturned on two occasions.

The first was in our first year – we turned up to a module (Computers in art & design) for the first time, and the tutor looked confused. She asked us who we were and what course we were on, and responded, “Oh! Oh, no, there’s no room for illustration students – priority goes to textiles and re-takes!” We went back to the head of our course, and he confidently assured us that he’d sort us our places. He managed to sort 20 places… for over 100 students. What happened to the other 80 or so students who didn’t get a place or alternative module? We got , “Failed, did not attend” on our official record. We protested, and it was removed, but we were pretty cross – we’d already lost an entire module, most with no replacement or reduction in the yearly tuition fee (they waived the individual module fee), getting blamed for it was infuriating.

The second was in our final year. Although I did illustration, we occasionally had to do essays. I always got very high marks for my essays (equivalent of a first), but in my final year, for the final essay, I barely scraped a third. I was obviously very, very confused, and so were one or two other people on my course who were expecting better marks. We went to ask for feedback, but it turned out that our essays had been lost, so we’d been given the ‘average’ mark for students on the module, rather than given an average based on our own marks!

In hindsight we should have kicked up a bigger fuss, but we didn’t for various reasons (mine being that I was more concerned with getting my dad backwards and forwards from radio and chemotherapy and didn’t need the additional stress).