discretion

Discretion

Undergraduate Examination Conventions B19 and H33, J39, K40-42, N56 & N58

Integrated Masters Examination Conventions H33, J39, N56 & N58

Postgraduate Taught Examination Conventions L43, L44, L45, P53-55, T64 and U67

Reminder: Boards of Examiners are asked to be aware of the need for, and importance of, recording accurately the reason for the exercise of discretion or, where appropriate, the reason for not exercising discretion.

Supplementary notes:

Areas where the Board of Examiners may exercise discretion

  • The two main areas where a Board of Examiners may exercise discretion are in passing modules, or stages ‘notwithstanding’, that would otherwise lead to failure, or the awarding of a better degree than would be obtained under the conventions (including recommending the award of a degree where none would otherwise have been awarded as of right). Discretion must not be used to deny an award that the student gains as of right.
  • Applying discretion to pass a stage ‘notwithstanding’ does not have any implications for individual modules, so the transcript records the actual (fail) marks, as it always must, but without any flag indicating that individual modules have been passed by discretion. Nevertheless, the transcript must record that the stage, as a whole, has been passed by discretion. Note that  one objective of K42 is the consideration of students who have failures, after three attempts, in up to 20 credits of non-core Stage 1 modules.
  • A Board of Examiners may use discretion to allow a student to progress despite not having the academic right to do so. Examples would include progression notwithstanding failure in a core module, or progression carrying more than 20 credits non-core fails. As with any application of the use of discretion, the reasons for the Board’s decision should be minuted. It is particularly important to consider whether the decision to apply ‘progression discretion’ will have any impact on the student’s ability to progress normally on the degree programme in future stages. Discretion should only be used rarely in such circumstances and always for a very good reason. It is not intended that Boards routinely allow students to progress in such circumstances.
  • Note that discretion is NOT restricted to the consideration of candidates who are 2 percentage points below a boundary.
  • The main circumstances where the Board might award a better degree are:
    • To award a higher class of Honours or Masters’ degree classification to a student who qualifies, as of right, for an Honours or Masters’ degree.
    • To award an Honours or Masters’ degree(of any class) to a student registered for an Honours or Masters’ degree who does not qualify, as of right, for an Honours or Masters' degree.
    • To award a Higher Education Certificate, Higher Education Diploma or a Pass Degree to an Undergraduate student who does not qualify as of right for this award.
    • To award a Postgraduate Diploma or Postgraduate Certificate to a Masters’ student who does not qualify as of right for this award.
General Principles
  • When exercising discretion, the Board of Examiners must accurately record the reason(s) for the decision taken in the minutes; this could include a cross reference to the recommendation of the PEC Committee in cases where there were medical or mitigating circumstances.
  • In certain circumstances, the reason for not applying discretion should also be noted.
  • Each case should be considered on an individual basis in order to avoid creating a precedent, and the Chair of the Board of Examiners should be prepared to have to defend its decision in the event of an appeal.
  • It must be emphasised that discretion can be applied on an individual basis only, without precedent for the outcomes of other students. Whilst the Board should not create de facto rules by use of discretion, it should nevertheless apply discretion in a consistent manner. For example:
    • If a Board recommends the award of an Honours degree to a candidate failing 30 credits in the final Stage it needs to have some grounds, such as overall strength or the passing of important modules. It should not then fail another candidate who fails 30 credits and meets the same grounds (although it may point to significant reasons for failing the latter and it should minute these). Nor should it thereafter consider a precedent set whereby all candidates averaging 40+ overall and failing 30 credits are passed.
    • An Undergraduate candidate with an overall average of 58. If the grounds for recommending the award of a II.1 by discretion are that the final year average is well over 60, then the Board should ensure consistency in considering another student averaging 58 overall by considering whether the same grounds would apply to the same extent, but it should not thereafter consider a precedent set whereby all students averaging 58 overall are awarded a II.1. Word of warning: this argument is not strong where the final stage already carries more weight than the preceding stage.
  • When a module is passed by discretion, Convention P59 dictates that the mark used by the board of examiners shall be the pass mark; this includes the current board meeting, it is not referring solely to future calculations. In particular the mark should be regarded as 40/ 50 in considering whether other modules are passed by compensation (Conventions J34-39/ K35-42). The board of examiners should be aware that passing one or more modules by discretion might, in some cases, lead to any other failed modules being passed by compensation.
  • Where a candidate fails more than 20 credits the exercise of discretion is required to award any sort of honours degree. The Board does not have to award the classification which the weighted average implies, even though a listing of candidates in order of weighted average might give this impression. For example a candidate with a weighted average of 51 and 40 credits of fail is strictly only entitled to a pass degree. Therefore the award of a third class degree requires the exercise of discretion and is a legitimate outcome. The candidate is NOT entitled to the class of degree indicated by the weighted average, because the candidate has not met the requirements for the automatic award of an honours degree. It may help to consider the hierarchy of awards in rising order -HE Certificate; HE Diploma; Pass degree; Third Class Honours.

Grounds for discretion
  • The Chair of the Board of Examiners should seek the Board’s agreement to the grounds for discretion in each case.
  • Grounds for discretion might be (but are not limited to):

1.   For degree class: medical/personal circumstances, exceptional final year performance   (exit velocity), advice from externals, strength in most important modules.

2.   For passing modules: medical/personal circumstances, overall strength with passes in most important modules in a subject area, marks returned on a given module are low, student would have passed by compensation had they not been absent from another exam with good cause.

  • Discretion on medical or personal grounds should be based on a view of attainment. There should be evidence that appropriate understanding had been attained and that this would have been demonstrated had the personal/medical circumstances not intervened. Typically the personal/medical circumstances will have affected performance in, and/or preparation immediately before, examinations in one or more modules with coursework performance and examination performance in other modules providing appropriate evidence. Longer-lasting circumstances affecting understanding of pre-final-stage modules may be grounds for discretion when considering awarding a higher degree class. However longer-lasting circumstances affecting understanding in the final stage should not normally be regarded as grounds for awarding a higher degree class. For example, a student who is unable to attend lectures for large parts of the final year and has not attained the required standard for any reason (e.g. medical problems, student undertaking paid work), should not receive discretion on these grounds alone, however sympathetic one might be to the plight of that student. In some cases, applying to PEC Committee to re-sit the year as a first attempt is a more appropriate course of action, but it is not always feasible for the student.

Grounds for not using discretion
  • When a student has been given additional time to complete an assessment (usually an unseen examination, and usually for a disability such as dyslexia), the PEC Committee should not normally recommend any further discretion unless, in its judgement, the additional time does not adequately compensate for the problems encountered by the student. To recommend some discretion routinely in these cases is to apply a measure of ‘double counting’ which is unacceptable in terms of natural justice, particularly when set against the relative disadvantage afforded to students who do not come before the PEC Committee.
  • Even when a student evidently possesses poor language skills, the assessments must be marked according to the same principles as for all other members of the cohort. The marking, and the construction of the final return mark, should not take any account of the language difficulties. However, a case could be presented to the PEC Committee, and the judgement of this body will be reported to the full Board; only then might some adjustment be invoked.
  • Boards of Examiners are reminded that discretion should not be applied to module decisions with the purpose of over-ruling or nullifying sanctions imposed under the University Student Disciplinary and Assessment Irregularity Procedures. Both procedures include clauses which allow personal and extenuating circumstances to be taken into account when considering the most appropriate sanction, as well as mechanisms for appealing against any sanction. However, unless a Student Disciplinary Committee has expressly stated otherwise, a Board of Examiners retains the right to apply discretion in order to award a student a higher classification or type of award than a student has as of right. For example, an Undergraduate student may have been given a ‘0’ mark in a 20 credit module due to an assessment irregularity, and may have marginally failed another 10 credit module. Whilst the BoE should not return anything but a ‘0’ for the module affected by assessment irregularity, it may consider the case for awarding an Hons degree despite the ‘0’ and the other marginal fail. Student Progress Service will endeavour to make case outcome letters as clear as possible to ensure that Chairs of BoEs understand SPS and/or Student Disciplinary Committee’s intentions when imposing any particular sanction. Further clarification, if required, can be sought from the SPS case team by emailing casework@ncl.ac.uk

School or Subject Rules about Discretion

It is sensible for boards of studies to consider how BoEs should exercise discretion and determine the answers to such questions as:

  • Which modules are covered by the exercise of discretion on the grounds of exceptional performance?
  • What in such circumstances would constitute exceptional performance?
  • What sort of profile is required to justify the award of a higher classification to a borderline candidate?

In developing School or Subject guidelines on the use of discretion, Boards of Studies need to remember that any internal guidance is additional to rather than in place of the examination conventions and must be compatible with them. Schools should also be mindful that information about local guidance may need to be made available to candidates who appeal or make an FOIA request.

Flagging the use of discretion on the mark sheet
  • Where there are failing marks which have been passed by discretion, this should be detailed on the mark sheets returned to the Examinations Office so that it is clear that the student is not required to be reassessed either in whole or in part. (see the module appraisal codes detailed in Appendix IA.) Explicitly, the decision to apply discretion should be made against each relevant module.
  • Code 3 — pass by discretion — should be used to indicate where discretion has been applied. This clearly distinguishes those students from others who have a right to progress ‘notwithstanding’ failed modules because of compensation rules (code 2).