Origin: Programme
Development and Quality Team
There has
been debate for some time about the level of discretion available to Programme
Boards. Some departments, and some
External Examiners, have expressed a sense of being unduly constrained by
current regulations.
Such
discussion led to the decision, implemented from the current session, to permit
undergraduate Programme Boards under certain conditions to condone marks which
do not meet the normal requirements for progression or for an award to be made
(ARUA 2004, para 9).
There
remains a perception on the part of some however that the problem lies in being
unable to take final year students out of rank order (as defined by their
programme mark) unless a viva voce examination has taken place. A few departments have therefore continued
to pursue a possible revision of current Programme Board procedures to address
this issue. Mechanisms such as a
‘majority of papers rule’ have been suggested, which would allow Programme
Boards to exercise academic judgement about the degree classification of
individual candidates whose profile of module marks fulfils certain criteria
suggesting they might merit a higher classification than indicated solely by
the programme mark.
The three
AD(T)s recently consulted departmental teaching co-ordinators or their
Directorates on the question whether there should be any change in existing
procedures to allow Programme Boards such scope for moving students out of rank
order. They reported back to the PDQ
Team that they found no support for such a proposal from either Engineering or
Science, and views amongst SSH departments were mixed, some departments being
happy with the existing system whilst three or four would like to see some
change.
This raised
the question whether the small minority of departments which wanted it should
be allowed to adopt a different scheme within their own programme
regulations. PDQ felt this would be a
retrograde step and lead to difficulties in the case of joint degrees.
In the
light of the views expressed, PDQ RECOMMENDS to LTC that the current degree
classification rules should continue to apply across the institution.