Where modules are examined by written paper you should make sure that you know what the instructions (the "rubric") require. Typically this may be that you should answer two questions from the three on the paper in a 90-minute exam. Some papers have more than one section, and you should check the details of those carefully.
If you would like the Board of Examiners to take your illness or other circumstances during the year (or an exam period) into account then you must submit an "Personal Extenuating Circumstances Form (PEC)" by the deadline date. The Board of Examiners cannot take your circumstances into account without a copy of this form submitted by you. PEC Forms may be obtained from 8th floor Reception or by downloading it. You should read the guidance for completing the PEC form carefully. You must submit some evidence of your circumstances with your form.
The deadline date for submission of the form will be notified to students, but is normally at the end of the exam period in June or August.
After the Board of Examiners' meetings have taken place.
The progression Boards of Examiners' meetings for all MSc students in the School of Computing Science will take place as follows:
MSc Advanced Computer Science - Thursday 5th April 2012
MSc Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology - Wednesday 11th April 2012
MSc Computer Security and Resilience- Thursday 5th April 2012
MSc Computer Games Engineering - Wednesday 11th April 2012
MSc Computing Science - Tuesday 26th June 2012
MSc Internet Technologies and Enterprise Computing- Thursday 5th April 2012
The final Board of Examiners for all MSc programmes will take place in October or November 2012. Dates to be announced.
The final Board of Examiners for all single honours BSc Computing Science and Information Systems students will take place on:
Thursday 21st June 2012
Boards of Examiners for students on degree programmes administered by other Schools will take place on different dates.
Normally results will be made available via NESS as soon as possible after the Exam Board meeting. Students will be notified by email when their results have been released. However, Stage 1 undergraduate students need to contact their tutor to receive their Semester 1 results once these are available.Results will be made available using NESS. Results will also be made available via the S3P system (but possibly a couple of days later than NESS). Via NESS you should be able to see the individual module results of all of the CSC modules, and the overall final decisions for students on the CS/IS degree programmes. Module results will only be released once examination results are officially available, so for example JH students will not be able to see CSC module results until their Exam Board has met.
If you have failed any modules and require a resit, or if you have any other academic queries about your results, you MUST contact your tutor for advice.
As a last resort, if you are not able to collect your results via NESS and assuming you want to know what your results are, you must make arrangements to get your results by post, email or telephone.
To get your results by post, you must leave an A4 stamped self-addressed envelope with your tutor. They will then send you a note of the year's results. Should it be necessary, the transcript will indicate those modules for which a resit is required and include a resit examination entry form. See the section on resit arrangements for further information. If you do not receive your results within a week of the release of exam results, your tutor can also give you your results by telephone, or by email.
To get results by email, you must send your tutor an email from your @ncl.ac.uk email address containing the email address you wish them to use. You will also need to check whether your tutor will be here to send you your results. It would be most helpful if you also listed the modules that you are expecting results for, one per line. Note however, that if you have any resits, you will be responsible for obtaining a copy of the resit examination entry form, as described elsewhere.
To get your results over the telephone, you should telephone the School (0191)-222-7972 and ask for your tutor. When you ring the School, be ready to give details of your degree programme and stage in case you do not know who to ask for.
Your first port of call should be your personal tutor. Details of examination marks, whether in Computing or in other subjects, will normally be issued through your tutor, who will also be able to give any necessary advice. If (and only if) your tutor is not available a number of other members of staff can help, depending on your degree programme and stage. Consult the contacts lists to see who else can help.
If you have failed any modules, you are strongly advised to discuss the situation with your tutor.
To
progress from one Stage of your degree to the next, normally requires
you to satisfy all of the requirements of the current stage. However,
University regulations allow undergraduate students to carry up to 20
credits of failed non-core modules to the next stage (thus increasing
the examination load in the next stage).
If you are in the
final Stage of an Undergraduate Honours degree programme, resit
examinations are not normally available or required. (However there are
University regulations where in certain cases final year UG students may be allowed to take a resit.)
For further information see UG exam conventions, PG exam conventions.
If you are:
a UG Honours degree student, then if you get a mark of 40% (or greater) you have passed that module.
a Masters degree student, then if you get a mark of 50% (or greater) you have passed that module.
A module mark below 40% (UG), 50% (MSc), is normally a fail, although there are some compensation rules that may apply. Your tutor can give you further advice.
You only take resits in modules that you have failed, and you have to take all of the resits during the same examination period. (This is normally the August resit period.)
If you were absent from an examination (in the January or June exam periods) you will be recorded as having an examination mark of zero, and hence will be recorded as having failed. Failing to submit a major project also counts as an absence. You will be counted as having attempted the examination - see the information on how many times you can take an exam.
If there were good reasons for your absence, or for your failure to submit a project (e.g. documented illness), then you must discuss the situation with your tutor. You (or your tutor acting on your behalf) may need to apply for a "concession". You can do this by submitting a PEC form - see above. Missing an exam because you misread the final examination timetable, because your alarm clock didn't go off, or other such excuses will not count as a good reason for an absence.
The usual examination period for resits is in August (although it is often referred to as the "September" resit period!).
The timetable for the resit period will appear on the Exams Office website at: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/examinations/ usually in the latter part of July.
Students will automatically be entered to attempt resits in the August/September resit period so that they can proceed to the next Stage of their degree programme without interruption. Students may apply for a concession to allow them to take an examination in the following academic year, providing they can prove mitigating circumstances. Note however, that if you choose to do this (and the failed modules include core modules or more than 20 credits have been failed), you will have to take a year out of residence - that is, miss a year. You will not be a student during the year out of residence, and will not normally be allowed to attend lectures for failed modules.
You cannot choose to mix resits between August/September and the next normal occasion.
Yes, you can apply to take resit examinations in your home country. However, not all examinations are suitable for taking away from the Newcastle campus, so you need to check whether all your resit exams are suitable for taking in your home country. Please read the information about Overseas Resits carefully.
At UG Stages 1 and 2 you are permitted three attempts to pass a module (in other words you get two attempts at resits). One resit attempt may be permitted for Stage 3 (in certain circumstances) and also 1 resit attempt for Masters-level modules. Taught masters students are only entitled to take resits if they have failed no more than 40 credits.
Most module leaders are willing to help you prepare for resits. Such help will normally extend to answering questions about module material or going over attempts at past module exam questions. Module leaders, however, are unlikely to be positive towards students who don't appear to be helping themselves, so requests along the lines of "I missed all of your lectures, can you repeat them all please?" are unlikely to receive what a student might regard as a satisfactory answer!
If you think you may require assistance from a module leader, you must contact the module leader sufficiently early to determine when they might be available for consultation. It is not reasonable to expect everyone to be available for the whole summer.
If you cannot proceed to the next Stage of your degree, you normally have to go out-of-residence (i.e. leave the University temporarily) and return for a further (and possibly final) attempt at passing the failed module(s).
If there are mitigating circumstances, you may be permitted to repeat the tuition of a failed module in residence (i.e. you attend all of the lectures of that module in the following academic year), subject to the payment of the appropriate tuition fees. You will need to discuss this with your tutor and the DPD.
Whatever mark you obtain in a resit examination, resit marks are capped at 40% (for undergraduates) and 50% (for postgraduates) for the purposes of calculating your Stage average.
No. Students who are deemed not to have passed an examination will automatically be entered to take their resit examinations in the August exam period.
The Board of Examiners will be meets in early September to consider resit results. Results should be available shortly after the meeting, and you should consult the section on getting results to identify the mechanisms by which you can find out your results.
Most modules in Computing Science are originally assessed by examination and coursework. Where a student fails a module it may be because of unsatisfactory coursework, or because the examination performance was unsatisfactory, or both.
If you have failed a module, you have to take the resit examination for that module. For the majority of CSC modules, there is a single resit examination which covers both coursework and lecture material. No matter whether you failed a module because of coursework or exam performance, you have to comply with the resit arrangements. Normally this takes the form of an examination, which may address issues that were covered in the original coursework, as well as lecture material. The resit examination is timetabled by the Examinations Office.
The format of the resit papers for some modules may not have been finalised yet. As a general point, please be aware that the format of a resit exam may be different to that of the normal exam. For example, a resit exam may be longer, and may have compulsory questions that address coursework issues.
| Module Number | Title | Resit Exam Duration (Hrs: mins) | Resit exam comments/ differences from normal exam |
| CSC1011 | Introduction to Problem Solving and Programming | 2:00 | Answer all questions in Section A and Section B. Open book exam. Note: This is *not* an on-line exam. |
| CSC1012 | Object-oriented Programming | 3:00 | On-line exam. Answer all questions. |
| CSC1013 | Foundation Mathematics for Computing Science | 2:00 | Answer 7 out of 10 questions. |
| CSC1014 | World Wide Web and its Client-side Technologies | All-day | An all-day, take-away paper that will be available from CS Reception on the scheduled day of the examination. The examination will require use of a PC. (Students wishing to use a School cluster will need a Smartcard for access.) |
| CSC1015 | The IT Professional in Today's Society | 3:00 | Answer both questions. Open book exam. |
| CSC1016 | Computer System Organisation | 3:00 | Answer all questions in Section A and Section B. Covers material taught in BOTH Semester 1 and Semester 2. |
| CSC2011 | Advanced Programming | 2:15 | Answer all 3 questions. |
| CSC2012 | Database Technology | 2:00 | Answer one question in Section A, and one question in Section B. |
| CSC2013 | Computer Networks and System Programming | 1:00 | Answer all questions |
| CSC2014 | Modelling and Computation | 3:00 | Answer all questions in Sections A, B & C. Open book exam. |
| CSC2015 | Software Engineering Team Project | All day. | An all-day, take-away paper that will be available from CS Reception on the scheduled day of the examination. Covers material from the whole module. |
| CSC2016 | Algorithm Design and Analysis | 1:30 | Answer all of the five compulsory questions. NOTE: the resit exam covers BOTH Semester 1 and Semester 2 material. |
| CSC2511 | World Wide Web and its Server-side Technologies | 2:15 | Answer all questions. Open book exam. |
| CSC3xx | Any Stage 3 modules | Resits provided only in certain circumstances. See your tutor. | |
| CSC6001 | Computer Applications - part 1 | 1:30 | Answer all questions |
| CSC6002 | Computer Applications - part 2 | 1:30 | Answer both questions. |
| CSC8002 | Advanced Programming | 3:00 | Answer 2 out of 3 questions in Sections A and B |
| CSC8004 | Networks and Web Technologies | 1 x 1:30, 1 x 1:30 | Theory paper - answer 3 out of 5 questions. PC based exam - as per original exam. |
| CSC8008 | Information Systems | 1:30 | Answer all questions |
| CSC8105 | System Validation | 1:30 | Answer all questions |
| CSC8201 | The Challenge of Dependable Systems | 1:30 | Answer 2 out of 3 questions in Sections A and B |
| CSC8202 | Information Security and Trust | 1:30 | |
| CSC8204 | High Integrity Software Development | 1:30 | Answer 2 out of 3 questions |
| CSC8404 | Advanced Programming in Java | 1:00 | Answer all questions from Section A and 1 out of 2 questions in Section B |
This document is intended to match the University Regulations, and if there are contradictions the Regulations take precedence.