PEC
PEC Personal Extenuating Circumstance (PEC) Committee
PEC Guidance documents and Procedure are available here.
Undergraduate Examination Conventions B14, B15 and B16
Taught Masters’ Examination Conventions B14, B15 and B16
Supplementary notes:
How it should accept reports of personal/mitigating circumstances
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PEC Committees have a year-long role. Students are encouraged to submit PEC applications as soon as they have any issues to report rather than wait until the next formal assessment period. On review of PEC applications, committee members have the authority to offer practical adjustments as well the option to retain the application for consideration at the pre-Board of Examiners meeting, where the case for applying discretion will be considered and rated.
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The PEC Committee may choose to delegate consideration of certain cases to other staff within the School or academic unit. For example, the PEC Committee may wish for routine extensions to be granted by a Programme Secretary if clear evidence is provided by the student. Delegated staff must feel able to seek advice from PEC Committee members, or to refer the case through to PEC Committee members if they feel unable to make a decision on the basis of the evidence available.
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Decisions made by delegated staff or PEC Committee members are still, ultimately, decisions of the PEC Committee and should made with that in mind. Staff making decisions on behalf of the PEC Committee should not need to be identified by name in, for example, the outcome emails that are sent to students.
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In addition to encouraging year-round applications, it is recommended that the Chair of the Board of Examiners ensures that a communication is sent to all students requiring notice, in writing, of any personal/mitigating circumstances (and any additional evidence), to be presented to the PEC Committee at least 24 hours in advance of the scheduled pre-Board of Examiners meeting. Oral reports from students should not be accepted.
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Staff should be advised that consideration of personal circumstances of individual students will not be considered at the Board of Examiners and, in the interests of parity to all students, circumstances affecting performance must be made available to the PEC Committee.
How it should report to the Board of Examiners
- The discussions of, and the decisions reached by, the PEC Committee, must be minuted. Normally the minute will be compiled by the Academic or Administrative Secretary to the Board of Examiners (who should normally be a member of the PEC Committee), but this is not prescriptive.
- The minutes should be used by the Chair of the Board of Examiners to provide a brief report to the Board in each case in respect of (a) confirmation that there were medical or mitigating circumstances presented to the PEC Committee, and (b) any recommendations for discretion made by the PEC Committee. The Chair may also usefully have to hand a copy of the summary spreadsheet of all PEC decisions in order to clarify the adjustments that have already been given in individual student cases.
- There should be no detailed discussion of any individual student’s personal circumstances at a Board of Examiners.
Membership of the PEC Committee
- ‘Senior’ in this context means a member of the Board of Examiners (other than the Chair and the Academic Secretary) who is either (a) a Senior Lecturer (or above) and / or (b) has significant experience as a Degree Programme Director, Senior Tutor and / or member of a Board of Examiners.
- The Chair of the PEC Committee shall, in consultation with the Board of Studies (and the Head of School or Dean if necessary), ensure that the membership of the PEC Committee is appropriate.
- Note the requirement for an additional member of the PEC Committee. This should be someone from outside of the academic unit but involvement of this additional member will be minimal and normally limited to attendance at full committee meetings.
- If the secretary is not a member of academic staff then a fourth senior member of academic staff must be appointed to the committee PEC i.e. Chair, plus three senior colleagues, plus the Secretary.
Marks
- Marks entry on SAP: Schools may use the ‘Concession’ module appraisal decision for PEC cases as a reminder that the next mark may need to be entered as a first attempt (or second, or third attempt).
- PEC adjustments may not necessarily apply to the module as a whole. In the majority of cases, only part of the assessment of a module is affected, e.g. the examination only. Boards of Examiners need to be aware of elements of assessment and the exact details of the adjustment granted as this will affect the calculation for the final module mark; this detail should be included in the PEC outcome email to the student.
- A student might need to sit one component of assessment in August as a 1st attempt and possibly another component as a 2nd attempt. The latter might or might not be necessary, depending on the performance in the former. A decision by a student to attend only the former should not be taken as grounds for a special exam for the latter at very short notice.
- An initial decision should be made as to whether the student passes the module based solely on the 1st attempt marks. If the decision is a pass, then the appropriate overall mark should be returned as a pass at 1st attempt. If the decision is a fail, then the marks for the new 1st attempt(s) should be combined with the 2nd attempt(s) and the mark returned as a 2nd attempt with the appropriate pass/fail decision. However this procedure should not prejudice the student’s right to a 2nd attempt on that element which has only been attempted once, in order to produce an overall pass mark.
- A point of good practice is for the Secretary to have access to a record of all PEC adjustments that have a bearing on Board decisions (e.g. approved deferral of assessment/ examination). Relevant PEC adjustments such as deferrals should be reported to the Board and referred to in the minutes.
Data Protection
- Boards of Examiners should be aware that the written proceedings of the Board and the PEC Committee are covered by the provisions of the Data Protection Act. Minutes should be written in a manner which assumes that any student may submit a subject access request, and should be in a format to ensure that information regarding other students is not disclosed.
- Specific statements or opinions should not be attributed to named individuals.
