School of English

Updated Dec 2012

>> School of English Assessment and Feedback Policy  <<

The School of English at Queen’s uses a variety of assessments with the dual purpose of both evaluating and enhancing students’ learning; feedback is a vital part of this process. Assessment is a considered part of the design of individual modules and of the curriculum as a whole. To this end, the School regularly reviews the assessment and feedback mechanisms at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

All assessment within the School of English conforms to the following principles; these principles are informed by the QAA Code of Practice for the Assessment of Students and the University’s Assessment Policy (see Appendix 1). These principles are also in line with the University’s general Regulations, including the Student Charter which articulates both what students can expect and what is expected from them. In turn, there is throughout this document an assumption that students are active participants in their own learning and in the general educational environment of the School of English.

This document works through the cycle of assessment and feedback in the School of English, through the following stages:

(i)  the introduction of assessment as part of new module design or revisions to existing modules;

(ii)  the types of assessment and their scrutiny;

(iii) the points at which students engage with assessment;

(iv) the marking of assessment;

(v)  the feedback supplied to students;

(vi) progression.

(i) Assessment and Module design

All new modules must be submitted to either the School Education Committee (undergraduate) or the School Postgraduate Committee (PGT) for quality assurance and approval. The information provided by proposers of new modules must include information on the form of assessment to be used. In general, assessment of new modules should conform to the stage-appropriate forms of assessment in terms of word length, coverage, and timing.

All new modules must include a model essay/examination question list or equivalent information about assessment before approval at School Education Committee; at postgraduate level, assessment guidelines must be supplied with new module information before approval by School Postgraduate Committee.

If a form of assessment which has not previously been used in the School is proposed, or if the proposed assessment does not conform to the general pattern of assessment, the module convenor should explain why the form of assessment is appropriate to the module and how it evaluates and enhances the module’s learning outcomes and skills.

If a convenor wishes to change the form of assessment for an existing module, this change must also be approved by the School Education Committee or the School Postgraduate Committee as appropriate.

This quality assurance and approval process will include consideration of how assessment for new modules or revisions to modules fits into the existing structure of assessment at each Stage and across the degree as a whole in terms of timing, word length, coverage and proportion of marks.

(ii) Types of assessment and scrutiny

The School of English encourages the use of a wide variety of assessment methods as this will counter any inbuilt advantage or disadvantage to students arising from a predominance of one type of assessment. That said, the most appropriate form of assessment for many, if not most, undergraduate modules in the School will be a piece of writing of short to medium length (1500-3000 words), whether as an essay, or under examination conditions. Other forms of assessment – multiple choice questions, class tests, self-critical statements and so on – may also be used, but in all cases there must be a clear rationale for the assessment which indicates to students how and why this assessment method is appropriate to the module content and learning outcomes.

It will be the responsibility of the School Education Committee or School Postgraduate Committee to ensure that assessment across modules at a particular stage is equivalent.

All assessment carried out in the School will be vetted by an appropriate Scrutiny Board and will also be made available to the relevant external examiner for comment before being published to the students.

Normally, undergraduate modules will have a 10% component assigned to the assessment of tutorial and seminar contribution to encourage and reward student participation. This component will be marked according to the School’s marking criteria. More formal contributions to tutorials and seminars specified in the module description (e.g. presentations) can be assigned a further proportion of the overall module mark only if they take a form that can be vetted by an external examiner.

(iii) Student engagement with assessment

Students must be given a clear explanation of how a module is to be assessed as part of the module description.

Specific information (e.g. essay lists) about assessment for a module will be published to all students on the module at the same time. Tutors may answer student questions about assessed work in tutorials where all students can benefit from the information; tutors must take care not to supply information to individual students which could give them an unfair advantage over other students. Students can ask questions about the specifics of assessment but should be prepared for tutors to say that no further information can be supplied.

As far as possible a standard rubric will govern all forms of assessment; where the standard rubric cannot be used for a particular type of assessment, care must be taken to ensure that students are made aware of differences from the standard rubric.

While much assessment will be carried out at the end of semester, there are often good reasons for a module being partially assessed during semester. The timing of such assessment will be carefully monitored by the year convenor and Education Committee to ensure as far as possible that students are not overloaded with assessed work during semester. Where assessed work is submitted during semester, students will be informed of the date by which they can expect to receive provisional marks and feedback for that work. Marks published during semester remain provisional until confirmed by the next exam board; as provisional marks cannot be reduced, markers are reminded that in the case of split marks, the lower mark should be published.

All forms of assessment are formative in that they enhance student learning. Where purely formative work (i.e. work which does not receive a summative assessment mark) is used on a module, it must be made clear to students that this is formative work only, and they must be given clear guidance on whether this work can be used for later summative assessment. The assumption is that students will be able to revise such formative work for later use, but students must pay due attention to the marking criteria, especially in regard to relevance, when submitting revised work for assessment purposes. In general, the School policy is that formative assessment must have a very specific purpose (e.g. to ascertain whether students have grasped particular foundational concepts) which is detailed in the module description available to students; feedback on formative work should be explicitly keyed to that purpose. When considering mid-semester work, module convenors should be able to state clearly why purely formative work in being requested rather than a summative component.

(iv) Marking of assessment

All assessed work will be marked in accordance with the University’s Conceptual Scale (and its attendant regulations) and with the marking criteria published in the Student Handbook and on the School’s webpage. Tutors and convenors should ensure that these criteria are widely publicised.[1]

All marking in the School is carried out anonymously whenever possible; in some cases (for example, dissertations and some creative writing work) anonymity is not possible. In such cases, the work will be double marked or a moderator will assess the work anonymously. Assessed work will normally be submitted online: Appendix 2 provides students with guidelines on how to remove personal information from their work before uploading it.

All work at undergraduate level is marked by a first marker who is responsible for providing feedback; a random sample of the work for each module at undergraduate level is also looked at by a moderator in the School to ensure uniformity of marks across all modules. Markers should ensure that moderation can begin early in the process, i.e. scripts and feedback should be passed to the moderator in batches, rather than at the end of the run of marking. The moderator will chose scripts at random, ensuring that a sample of about 10-15% of total scripts is selected. In addition, the marker is able to point out scripts that are problematic (e.g where they are undecided about a mark) or that otherwise require attention (e.g. where a very high mark has been awarded). Finally, our external examiners are sent a sample of work from every module with its feedback and are asked to assure the standards of marking and of feedback. A normal sample for the external examiner would be about 10-15% of the total number of scripts, though we will keep this under review with the external examiners, and sample size will be in line with the weighting of the Stage at which the work is presented; in addition to this normal sample, cases of split marks or other problems requiring adjudication will also be sent to the external.

Undergraduate dissertations and all PGT work will be double marked across the School’s pathways and programmes. Both sets of comments will be sent to the external along with the scripts. The first marker will be responsible for ensuring that the feedback provided to students combines both sets of comments.

Assessment in the School of English is primarily concerned with the knowledge and understanding acquired by students on individual modules. Assessment is also, however, a form of discipline which teaches or reinforces valuable skills. As active participants in their own education, students are expected to display discipline, time management skills, and the ability to follow the specific instructions for each piece of assessment they undertake. The following penalties apply to all forms of assessment within the School.

• Lateness: in accordance with General Regulations, 5 marks will be deducted for each working day of lateness without extension, up to a maximum of 5 days; thereafter, the work will be awarded a mark of 0.
• Length: each assessment will have a specified word length which is intended to include all the components of the assessment: main text, notes, bibliography etc. Some leeway on word length is allowable, and the rubric for each assessed component will include an appropriate word range (e.g. 1400-1600, 2400-2600). Short work penalises itself by failing to cover as much ground as it could. Feedback on short work will note that it is short and that this has lowered the potential mark. Overlength work can give an individual an unfair advantage over students who have written to the required length. Over length work (as judged by the marker) will therefore be explicitly penalised by 5 marks.
• Inappropriate submission: the instructions for each piece of assessed work detail how it is to be submitted. In most cases, students will be required to upload an electronic version of the work by a specific time on the due date. (See Appendix 2 for Guidelines on how to ensure anonymity.) In some exceptional cases, the instructions for an assessment will provide for another form of submission. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that they follow the correct procedure for submission. If a piece of work is submitted incorrectly it may not be accepted by the School or it will be subject to lateness penalties as detailed above.
• Rubric violation: in addition to due date and word length, the instructions accompanying assessment will require that the assessed work covers a particular number of texts or a specific genre or a certain period. Any assessed work that fails to fulfil these requirements will be subject to penalty at the discretion of the markers. Feedback on the work will specify the degree and severity of the rubric violation.
• Style: all work submitted to the School of English must conform to proper standards of presentation as detailed in the School Style Sheet. Work which does not meet these standards will be penalised; failure to reference sources or to provide a properly set out list of works cited will be penalised 5 marks. It is likely that such failure will also lead to the work being scrutinised for possible plagiarism. If plagiarism is discovered for this or any other reason, then the General Regulations governing plagiarism will take effect.
• Plagiarism: this is governed by General Regulation with which students should familiarise themselves. Module convenors and tutors will discuss plagiarism with students at appropriate times.

Assessed work for most modules will include a 10% component for tutorial and seminar contribution. While this is a mark for contribution, the amount (though not the quality) of contribution will depend on attendance; a grid is available to markers in cases of doubt about the relationship of contribution to attendance. Separate feedback for this 10% component will not be provided, as feedback already forms a part of tutorial and seminar discussions.

(v) Feedback supplied to students.

From 2011-12, the School of English will supply automatic feedback to all students for each piece of assessed work. This feedback will be delivered to students, in most cases, via QOL within 5 working days of marks being published; where possible feedback will be published alongside the mark.[2] The feedback will be informed by the School’s published marking criteria and will, if need be, also note any lowering of the mark due to penalisation with the exception of lateness penalties or cases of plagiarism which are handled by separate processes. The feedback will provide a breakdown of marks where it applies to assessment with more than one component. Students are required to retain a copy of any assessed work submitted to the School and they should be able to match the feedback to their own copy of the work. In the case of formal examinations, where the student cannot retain a copy of the work, more general feedback may be given. Moderators and external examiners must have sight of the feedback when verifying marks.  Markers and students are reminded that the School’s published marking criteria are Relevance, Knowledge, Analysis, Argument and Structure, Originality, and Presentation.[3] A model feedback sheet is appended to this document, but does not need to be used as long as feedback is specifically keyed to the marking criteria.

 Markers should be aware that the notes they write while marking must serve three purposes:

• they justify the mark by reference to the published criteria;
• they explain the mark to the external examiner;
• and they are used as feedback for students.

Markers must produce feedback which provides the student with a specific account of the strength and weaknesses of the work.

School policy is that all students will receive feedback that meets these requirements, and it is the responsibility of each marker to ensure that this is done to a satisfactory standard. All student enquiries about feedback will be referred to individual markers.

In addition to automatic feedback, students will be able to request meetings with markers to discuss their work; in such cases the student should be prepared to produce a brief self-reflective statement about what they perceive the strengths and weaknesses of their work to be.

At appropriate moments in the academic year, personal tutors will discuss the students’ progress in the light of their marks and the feedback they have received.

(vi) Progression.

To progress, students must meet the requirements set out in General Regulations. Feedback should help students to this end. A student should be able to use feedback to identify areas of weakness which might impede progress. Feedback should therefore, when appropriate, refer the student to the University’s Learning Development Services or to services provided within the School, such as the Royal Literary Fund Fellow.

Appendix II

Anonymous Marking: Guidelines for Students

The School of English is committed to the principle that student assessments should normally be marked anonymously, though there are some modules where the nature of the assessment means that this is not possible.

Anonymous marking relies on student co-operation. The following guidelines indicate how students can ensure that their work will be marked anonymously after online submission.

For Word users on PCs:

You can use the Document Inspector to find and remove hidden data and personal information in Word documents. It is a good idea to use the Document Inspector before you share an electronic copy of your Word document, such as in an e-mail attachment.

1. Open the Word document that you want to inspect for hidden data and personal information.

2. Click the File tab, click Save As, and then type a name in the File name box to save a copy of your original document.

IMPORTANT It is a good idea to use the Document Inspector on a copy of your original document, because it is not always possible to restore the data that the Document Inspector removes.

3. In the copy of your original document, click the File tab, and then click Info.

4. Under Prepare for Sharing, click Check for Issues, and then click Inspect Document.

5. In the Document Inspector dialog box, select the check boxes to choose the types of hidden content that you want to be inspected. For more information about the individual Inspectors, see Information the Document Inspector finds and removes.

6. Click Inspect.

7. Review the results of the inspection in the Document Inspector dialog box.

8. Click Remove All next to the inspection results for the types of hidden content that you want to remove from your document.

 IMPORTANT   

If you remove hidden content from your document, you might not be able to restore it by clicking Undo.

For Word users on Macs:

Open the file in Word

Click on Word –> Preferences

Under Personal Settings click on Security

Under Privacy options Tick box to “Remove personal information from this file on save”.

Click on 'Ok' to save the preference settings

Save the document

IMPORTANT It is a good idea to do this on a copy of your original document, because it is not always possible to restore the data that the removed by this process.

For PDF files

In Acrobat Reader, open the file and click on Preferences

Under Preferences select Identity

Remove any personal information and click Okay

IMPORTANT It is a good idea to do this on a copy of your original document, because it is not always possible to restore the data that the removed by this process.

NOTE: Updates to Word may alter the processes described above; we will endeavour to keep this Appendix up to date, but students must take responsibility for ensuring that personal information is removed from assessments that they submit.

To that end, if you are in any doubt about how to remove personal information from a file you are advised to Export it into Word and follow the steps above to strip out personal information.

Education

• Schools Programme
• Information for Postgraduates
• Student Support
• Staff-Student Consultative Committee
• School of English Assessment and Feedback Policy
• Extensions and Exceptional Circumstances