Response to Petition

7/29/2019 Response to Petition

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Dear Moshe, thank you for your email with the attached petition.

First I would like to acknowledge that we welcome feedback from students, and we do use this feedback

to inform our decisions on a range of matters. Your email (and petition) will be considered by theUndergraduate Laws Committee at its next meeting (which, as you know, has student membership). It isalso the case that as we redevelop and extend the range of learning and teaching materials we provide

more generally, we are actively seeking student feedback on their perceived usefulness (more on thesemechanisms below).

I need to point out that some aspects of what you are demanding are not within the powers of theUndergraduate Laws Programme (e.g. the demand for an academic appeals process). Some of theothers are in fact already under active review (prior to your email). You will appreciate however that wedo not change long standing practices lightly, without a very thorough consideration of a range of factorsincluding pedagogic, regulatory and cost implications, as well as internal college practices and recognisedbest practice.

However, I thought it might be helpful to make some general points in relation to our assessment systemand processes, in the context of your specific demands.

1. The University must publicize its grading standards and procedures per subject. The currentassessment criteria provided by the University is much too general and lacking in specifics to

guide us how to approach our studies and attain high marks.

On grading procedure, please see my response in 3. below. If by our assessment criteria you mean the

Appendix E Assessment Criteria contained in the Regulations, these are intended to provide a generaldescription of characteristics of performance within the grade bands, not only for students but also for

the general public including employers.

2. The University must require examiners to mark student exams with notes and explanations,

engaging students as to why points were awarded / deducted, and these marked exam paperswith the final grade must be digitally scanned and emailed to each student. Each student thathas paid an annual fee, spent a year studying, and took multiple 3 hour hand written exams isinitialed to receive copies of the exams with the specific rationalization for their grades. For thisservice, the University has a right to charge a reasonable fee, which I am certain every student

will be happy to pay. This will give much needed personal feedback (since we currently havenone) and help engage students so they can improve their future scholastic performance and willenhance the learning environment as a whole. Additionally, returning marked exams will provideunquestionable evidence that our grading is objective and in compliance with the Universitygrading standards, and will ease the current doubts which plague the current gradingmethodology.

As an English institution offering an English law degree, it will be helpful to point out that we follow thegenerally accepted practice including that of the six colleges that make up the laws consortium in the

University of London. It is not the generally accepted practice in Laws programmes to mark studentexams with notes and explanations, engaging students as to why points were awarded / deducted, and[to provide that] these marked exam papers with the final grade [are] digitally scanned and emailed toeach student. What you suggest is not some minor change in practice but a paradigm shift in currentpractice.

3. In the spirit of student engagement, the University must allow students who feel their grades

were unjustified to appeal for academic review (not just an administrative review for which theUniversity currently charges 50) to a third party examiner, who will grade the answers


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thoroughly with explanations in the side notes. The University must take this regarding into

account in considering the students final exam marks.

In relation to your concern that grades might be awarded unjustifiably, I thinkit would be helpful if Ioutlined the current processes for examination marking:

All examination scripts for the Diploma in Law and LLB are anonymous (bearing only a candidate numberwhich changes at each examination diet. Examiners do not have access to the list of names andcandidate numbers). All laws examination scripts are double-marked. Double marking is not blind(thesecond marker sees the mark given by the first marker), however where first and second marks differ,the normal process is for first and second marking to be averaged numerically. In cases of a seriousdifference between first and second markers, second markers consult the Chief Examiner in their coursefor moderation. Independently of this, significant discrepancies between first and second marking areidentified by the Student Assessment Office and referred to one or more of the Chief Examiners, or Chairof the Board of Examiners and/or the appropriate External Examiner.

Otherwise the general role of the External Examiner includes to ensure the standard of award isconsistent with that of the national university system and to assess the extent to which the processes forassessment are sound and have been fairly conducted.

On appeals generally, I am sure you will be interested to know that, like the University of LondonInternational Programmes, none of the 6 consortium law schools allow for appeals on academic

grounds. Furthermore the Quality Assurance Agency quality codes (http://www.qaa.ac.uk/Pages/default.aspx) expressly accept that most institutions do not allow appealsagainst the exercise of academic judgment.

4. The examiner reports provided by the University are the only feedback provided by the

University on how exams are marked, and the only document provided to us specifically guidingus how to properly answer exam questions. The current examiner reports are overly-general andvery lacking, and in no way give complete examples and instructions regarding how to achieve

high marks. The University must publish anonymized 1:1 exam answers in full, for the edificationof all its students and the advancement of legal education among its students. Anything lessdenies us the ability to learn how to properly answer examination questions, denies us the abilityto improve through our scholastic development, and is a disservice to our growth as futurelawyers.

It is important to distinguish between the marking process and the feedback process. We have takenaccount of general student feedback in relation to CE Reports and have reviewed their content andstructure. The new structure (which includes excerpts from a range of scriptsnot only firsts) is beingimplemented on a rolling basis, and may be further modified and adapted in light of additionalfeedback. Publishing Chief Examiner reports is a feature of this laws programme, but is not a feature of

many other laws programmes, and students can access a bank of past CE reports, through the VLE, toguide them in their exam preparations.

Any decision to publish first class answers in full must be based on sound pedagogic grounds and we arenot convinced that such grounds currently exist as would merit a change in policy. This is an issue that isregularly reviewed by the Undergraduate Laws Committee.

5. Detailed annual examiner reports and anonymized 1:1 scripts must be published by theUniversity in a timely manner. Currently, examiner reports are released in mid-January and later,which leaves a relatively short span of time for students to familiarize themselves with the

reports and revise for annual exams which typically start in the month of May. A fortiori studentswho did not pass their first set of exam/s are scheduled to re-sit in October of each year, and


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currently have NO examiner reports to refer to on the exams they sat and did not pass. These

students who did not pass and need the most guidance are completely denied this most basicright, and are unable to know where they were mistaken in their scripts. This policy is wholly

unjust to the weakest of students, and must be rectified hastily.

It is the case that Chief Examiner reports are not issued in time for the November examination diet.

However we make a bank of past examination papers and CE reports are available for students throughthe VLE, and of course the resit examination itself is not a repeat of the main diet paper. Having said thiswe are exploring how the reports can be made available earlier (this does involve other divisions withinthe International Academy). We recognise students who fail the examination would welcome thefeedback provided in the CE report for that examination as part of their preparation for the resit.

6. The University must once and for all allow External students to sit on the Student Council toadvocate for our own group interests. We the External non-UK students still have no sayregarding policies that affect us. In todays modern era, with the advent of online virtualenvironments, this would not be difficult to implement.

First, the International Programmes does not have a Student Council. All major InternationalProgrammes committees have student members including the Academic Committee which has an

additional ex offico place for the ULU President. I understand you have already been in communicationwith the International Academy on this matter.

I think it is helpful to set out the additional measures that the laws programme have in place to ensurethat we take account of student views to inform the design and delivery of our programme (and bearingin mind we have students in over 100 countries, across many time zones).

These include a variety of both formal and informal mechanisms, such as:

Student surveys Student membership on the Undergraduate Laws Committee (The ULC was the first committee

within the International Academy governance structure to appoint student members (in 2008)and it is planned to expand this role into a fully-fledged system of student representation by

2015) Student membership of the quality panel for the recent formal Periodic Review of the

Undergraduate Laws Programme

Feedback from Weekend and Regional Revision Courses Monitoring discussion forums to identify any persistent issues or concerns Feedback gathered during visits by ULP team on almost every ULP initiated visit to an

institution the Director or Deputy Director or Associate Director will set aside time to meet withstudents, either in the class or at a meeting organized for this purpose. We will also set asidetime to meet those students not attending institutions where this is feasible.

Email communications from students. The London Weekend Courses, Overseas Revision Coursesand Induction Day provide an opportunity for the Laws team to engage with students and gain

feedback in connection with the administration of the course or any other areas of concern Specific student focus groups which take place as a consequence of research projects (such as

our e-reader project) Student Ambassadors

Some of these mechanisms are new but we anticipate they will further improve the student experience.

7. The materials provided by the University (subject guides which form the basis of our studies)are outdated for certain subjects. Since law is an evolving subject, these materials must beupdated annually.


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Documents

Response to Petition