Assessment and Progression

See also a broader (but non-exhaustive) list of common assessment definitions.

Inclusivity

Designing and enabling accessible learning to ensure that all students, whatever their educational, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds and/or protected characteristics as defined by the Equality Act 2010, have the opportunity and support to progress to and within higher education.

Inclusive Assessment

Designing assessment from the outset that is, as far as possible, accessible for all students (recognising that some students with particularly complex needs may still require adjustments to assessments), using the concepts of ‘universal design’.

Adjusted Assessment

Making reasonable and appropriate changes to the original assessment format to enable all students to access and engage with the assessment, without compromising competence standards.

Alternative Assessment

Providing students with a different type of assessment that is accessible for them, which still tests the Learning Outcomes of the original assessment, without compromising competence standards.

Reasonable Adjustment

The expectation by law (Equality Act 2010) that assessments are accessible for students with recognised specific learning requirements (including disabilities, wellbeing, long term health conditions and/or individual learning needs), and that assessment is adapted (see adjusted or alternative assessment) where reasonable and necessary to ensure students can engage with the assessment equitably. See also Module coordinators guide to Reasonable Adjustments and Alternative Assessment.

Assessment Timing/Duration: Unseen and Seen Examinations (‘on campus’ or online)

Examinations (seen and unseen, on campus and online) are normally designed to be short formal assessments with a maximum of three hours duration normally expected (subject to reasonable adjustments). Assessments which are longer than three hours, or which can be completed over a longer timeframe (e.g. 6, 8 or 24 hours), can prolong anxiety for some students and will still require reasonable adjustment to enable students equality of opportunity. This is particularly challenging for students who would already receive further additional time, and students studying in different time zones. This may in itself lead to inequality of opportunity and student experience.

Where examinations are conceived to be longer due to online provision, or to enable students to engage with them at their own pace (See Take Home Examinations), students entitled to additional time should have the additional time applied to the expected completion time for the examination. Alternatively, the expectations of the assessment may be adjusted to account for this, for example by reducing the number of questions to answer, to enable the student to complete within the defined time, rather than by extending the entire window for the examination.

As students with specific learning requirements will be unable to access additional support where assessment is set within a short timeframe, alternative assessment method should also be considered to ensure all students can engage equitably with the assessment modality.

Assessment

The generic term ‘assessment’ applies to all activities designed to measure student learning, including examinations and continuous assessment, formative and summative assessments.

Authentic Assessment

Authentic Assessment describes any assessment type which reflects real-world applications that students may encounter in their future career.

Continuous Assessment

The evaluation of a student’s progress by regular assessment throughout a programme of study, as distinct from by examination.

For the purpose of these definitions, ‘Continuous Assessment’ refers to any assessment approach which has a submission date, but is not otherwise time constrained, also referred to as coursework. Students therefore have time and opportunity during the assessment to seek support through study skills, external proof reading or additional support software where required.

Examination

For the purpose of these definitions, ‘Examination’ refers to any assessment approach which is formally time constrained and normally independently invigilated unless stated. Students generally do not have time or opportunity during the assessment to seek support through study skills, external proof reading or additional support software where required, and other reasonable adjustments, including additional time, are applied to ensure equality of opportunity.

On Campus Examination

Examination taken with students physically attended at a secure venue with independent invigilators.

Online Examination

Examination which students take online in conditions which, as far as possible, replicate an in-person examination. The examination will normally be invigilated or subject to remote proctoring.

The term ‘Examination’ covers the following assessments at Swansea University:

Unseen Examination (On Campus)

Time constrained examination taken with students physically attending a secure venue with invigilators, where the paper is not released to students in advance. Unless informed otherwise, students will not have access to external resources, and reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant.

Unseen Examination (Online)

Unseen, time constrained examination sat securely with online invigilation or remote proctoring, where the paper is not released to students in advance. Unless informed otherwise, students will not have access to external resources, and reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant.

Seen Examination (On Campus)

Time constrained examination sat with students physically attending a secure venue with invigilators, but where questions have been released in advance of the examination. Alternatively, the examination topics may be released in advance, but the precise questions are unseen until the exam. Students may also have access to external resources during the examination where specified. Reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant.

Seen Examination (Online)

Time constrained examination sat online with online invigilation or remote proctoring, but where questions have been released in advance of the examination. Alternatively, the examination topics may be released in advance, but the precise questions are unseen until the exam. Students may also have access to external resources during the examination where specified. Reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant.

Restricted Open Book Examination (On Campus)

A time constrained seen, or unseen examination paper sat with students physically attending a secure venue, normally with invigilators, but students have access to specified external resources and materials, and reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant.

Restricted Open Book Examination (Online)

A time constrained online seen, or unseen examination paper sat online, normally invigilated or subject to remote proctoring, but students have access to specified external resources and materials, and reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant.

Take Home/Full Open Book Examination

A longer time-constrained examination where students can complete the paper at their own pace, across a predefined timeframe. Students are not expected to spend the full time allowed working on the paper, and this form of examination is normally not invigilated. Reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant to ensure accessibility and parity of experience.

Objective Structured Skills Examination (OSSE) /
Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) /
Objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE) (On Campus)

Students move around a series of testing stations being assessed on a number of learning outcomes, normally under formal examination conditions, each for a fixed period of time, reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant.

A class test is not considered to be a formal examination in terms of University regulations, but may still be subject to examination conditions.

Class Test (On Campus or Online)

Time constrained tests usually sat in class or online through the Digital Learning Platform or other appropriate software. These may or may not be invigilated or sat securely, with an unseen or seen paper, and are often taken online. Reasonable adjustments are applied for individual students where relevant.

Academic integrity reflects a shared set of principles which include honesty, trust, diligence, fairness and respect and is about maintaining the integrity of a student’s work and their award. 

All modules are assigned a credit weighting e.g. 10 credit points, 20 credit points etc. You must aim to accumulate these credit points as they are instrumental in determining whether or not you can progress from one Level/Part of Study to another or, for instance, whether you are eligible to be considered for the award of a degree or other award.

Specific Information – Undergraduate Students

It is the Progression Board (or in the case of final-year students, the Award Board) which determines whether or not you are to be awarded the credit for the modules you have studied. During its deliberations the Board takes into account the mark scored in individual modules and your overall performance in all modules. The Board will award credits for modules which you pass, i.e. satisfy the assessment and other specified requirements. A mark of 40% + will indicate that you have passed a module.

Specific Information – Postgraduate Taught Programmes Students

For postgraduate taught programmes it is the Progression Board, or at the end of your programme the Award Board, which determines whether or not you are to be awarded the credit for the modules you have studied. During its deliberations, the Board will take into account the mark scored in individual modules and your overall performance in all modules. The Board will award you credits for modules which you pass, i.e. satisfy the assessment and any other specified requirements in accordance with the marking scales.

You may be awarded a ‘lower’ qualification if you fail to attain sufficient credit to qualify for the award for which you were aiming. Such awards are referred to as Exit Qualifications and are awarded to candidates who might have been unable to complete the programme, have withdrawn from the University prematurely or failed.

Exit qualifications are awarded in recognition of what you actually achieved. You must satisfy the appropriate requirements, in terms of attaining the required number of credit points at appropriate levels and of passing the core modules before being awarded the exit or fall-back qualifications.

The exit qualifications available for Swansea University awards can be found in each specific award’s regulations.

The University recognises that occasionally students may be affected by a wide range of difficulties/circumstances, which may lead to the inability to prepare and/or submit coursework or take an examination. The University has adopted guidelines with strict deadlines for considering these circumstances in relation to assessment. These guidelines are detailed in the Policy on Extenuating Circumstances Affecting Assessment.

Your Faculty/School will advise you in what format (i.e. handwritten, typed and/or electronic) you must submit coursework within your Faculty/School handbook. If you have a disability, medical condition or specific learning difficulty, relevant adjustments will be made. Your Faculty/School may also specify issues such as font, length of assignment, method of referencing and other stylistic requirements concerning the submission.

You should be reminded that in submitting work electronically, the student ID number on the submitted work shall be deemed to be that of the author and in doing so you declare it to be your own, with reference and acknowledgements to the work of others fully made. In making a hard-copy submission, you may also be required to sign an appropriate declaration to this effect.

If you submit work electronically, the University reserves the right to submit this work via plagiarism detection software, which you would have agreed to upon enrolment as a student at this University.

You may not submit work on behalf of another and any claims made e.g. in cases of appeal or academic misconduct that the person submitting the work was not in fact you will therefore not be accepted.

In the case of submission of the directed independent learning for Postgraduate Taught Masters programmes, the Faculty/School will specify the submission requirements in the Faculty/School Handbook.

In most cases, examinations are hand-written. The exceptions to this are for certain disabled students for which the use of computers has been approved as part of their specific learning, teaching and assessment provision.

It is recognised that there are some instances where students may have difficulty making certain teaching and learning sessions. The University teaching timetable is complex and cannot generally be altered to take account of any subset of students’ requirements, however students will be supported in the following ways:

• Students should always approach their Faculty Student Support teams, the appropriate member of teaching staff, or their Personal Tutor in the first instance to discuss needs and options as early as possible.
• The University expectation is that all, scheduled learning and teaching sessions, should be attended consistent with its student Engagement Monitoring Policy 
• International students on the Student Route (previously Tier 4) should be particularly mindful of the importance of following engagement procedures that support the protection of their immigrations status 
• If a student needs to leave a session early, or arrive late, then they should make the member of staff teaching the session aware as soon as possible
• For sessions where there are multiple instances, (e.g. they are attending one of ten seminars that is laid on each week to accommodate the whole cohort) a student may request a move to an alternative session for the kinds of reasons below. This can be done via the Faculty Student Support team. Valid reasons for the request might include:
  • Regular (e.g. weekly) religious observance, for example Fridays between 1 and 2 PM for our Islamic community
  • Irresolvable clashes due to optional choices or travel times for cross campus courses, (e.g. with Joint Honours schemes).
  • A recognised University scholarship, (e.g. the TASS scheme meaning that the student is not available for certain times of the week).
  • A medical condition notified to the University for which reasonable adjustments are made.
  • Students who are carers and have a Carers passport
• For sessions where there is only one instance:
  • Where possible and viable, recordings of taught sessions will be made available and students will have access to supporting materials on Canvas
  • Students can make appointments as part of normal office hours with the members of teaching staff, or request a meeting outside of these hours to discuss any missed sessions and answer questions that may arise from the presentations, videos, and material on Canvas.
• Please note there may be occasions where a compulsory event cannot be moved, and no alternative arrangement is possible (e.g. field trips, clinical placement, some laboratory, sessions). Students should always approach their Faculty Student Support teams, the appropriate member of teaching staff, or their Personal Tutor as early as possible.

If you fail to accumulate the required number of credit points to satisfy the progression rules, you will not be allowed to proceed to the next Level of Study. In the case of final year undergraduate students, or students pursuing a Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate, this means that you will not qualify for your degree or award. The end-of-session Progression Board or Award Board will deal with the cases of students who fail to accumulate sufficient credit. The University recognises that a minority of students will fail some modules and consequently guidelines have been adopted to enable such students to redeem failures.

NB: If you are pursuing a degree programme which is accredited by a professional body you might find that more stringent assessment rules apply. You are advised to refer to your Faculty/School Handbook(s) for a comprehensive set of rules.

You must also be aware of the time limits for the completion of the various programmes. Details are given in specific programme regulations.

All resits will take place at Swansea University. You will not normally be allowed to sit examinations at other venues.

Specific Information – Undergraduate Students

If you are in Level 3, 4 and 5 the most common way of redeeming a failure is by - passing a supplementary examination. Alternatively you may be permitted to repeat the year/level of study as an internal candidate during the following session. 

If you have failed modules that are normally assessed by continuous assessment you are advised to contact the Faculty/School about the ways in which you will be re-assessed.

If you are in your final year of study (Level 6 or 7) you are advised to refer to the assessment regulations for your particular programme for information regarding redeeming failures. For most programmes of study, students in the final year who fail to quality for an award are not given any opportunity to redeem failures.

Undergraduate students, except those in the final year, may apply to repeat the failed modules only as an internal candidate. However, if you opt to repeat the failed modules only, you must complete a ‘Request to Repeat Failed Modules’ form (available from Student Services Processes that we support - Swansea University). In such cases, the marks attained in the following session will be capped for students in Level 5 (and Level 6 of an advanced initial degree). Each application will be assessed with reference to the requirements of external agencies such as the UK Visas and Immigration.

If you have failed a module at the end of Semester 1, you may be allowed, with the permission of the Faculty/School, to take a substitute module in Semester 2 to compensate for the failure. This will be regarded as attempting to redeem the original failure and consequently for Levels 5 and 6 the mark obtained will be capped at 40% (or 50% for Level 7 modules). At the discretion of the Progression Board, full-time Undergraduate candidates, except those in the final year of study, who have not acquired sufficient credit to proceed to the next level of study may be permitted up to a maximum of three further attempts to redeem the failures in the modules in order to be allowed to complete the level of study. These attempts must take place within two academic sessions (see Capping of Marks under Examinations).

If you have transferred programmes and are repeating the level of study/repeating modules you will normally be considered a repeat student and subject to harsher monitoring reviews. Should the Faculty/School be concerned about your progress they may make recommendations to the appropriate Academic Board (or sub-committee) to require you to withdraw if you are under performing.

It is your responsibility to check with your Faculty/School that the modules(s) to be redeemed will be available during the following academic session.

Specific Information - Postgraduate Taught Awards Students

Only one retrieval attempt is allowed for students pursuing postgraduate taught awards.

The cases of students who sit supplementary examinations will be considered by the Re-sit Progression Board, normally in September.

The mark for each module passed on a supplementary attempt is capped at a maximum of 50%.