Coursework
Deadlines, penalties and document limits
Items of coursework, such as essays and write-ups, will normally have strict deadlines. It is YOUR responsibility to ensure that you know both when the deadline for each submission is, and how the work has to be submitted (e.g. on paper to a particular office; electronically to a particular person or site). As your programme is preparing you for the world of graduate employment, where deadlines are often very strict indeed, you should treat School deadlines like train departure times (just a few seconds after the time has passed, it is very likely you will have missed the train!). Unless specifically exempted or mitigated, late submission of any piece of assessed coursework, including Project Reports, will result in a reduction of 10 marks per day (or part thereof beyond the deadline) for 5 days after which a mark of zero will be awarded. Students who submit referral assignments after the deadline will be automatically subject to a mark of zero. Exceeding the specified page limit will result in a deduction of 20 marks per page or part thereof.
Coursework will normally have a specified content limit. This will normally be a number of pages, but in some cases may be a number of words - it is YOUR responsibility to ensure that you understand exactly what the limits are and how they are to be achieved. Again, in post-graduate work you will usually find that documents, such as applications for grants, reports etc., have stringent word or page limit requirements - with line spacing, font, margins etc. specified. The standard School of Biological Sciences instructions for coursework including essays, reports and write-ups follow, but it is YOUR responsibility to ensure that you are aware of any alternative requirements for a particular piece of work:
The [submission] must not exceed [x] pages of text excluding the list of references. Text must be in Arial, 10 point, one and a half line spacing, with margins of at least 2.5 cm all around the text. ALL supporting material, such as figures, tables, text boxes etc. must be included in the page limit, and you are advised to ensure that any such items are sufficiently large enough to be read and understood with ease.
If you prefer to prepare your work in a different font, font size or format you are advised to check frequently that the material will convert to the above for submission, as penalties will normally be imposed for exceeding the limits (e.g. a percentage of marks lost for each page over the limit or part thereof). If the work needs to be converted to a PDF for submission you should check very carefully that the conversion is accurate and conforms to the guidelines well in advance of the submission deadline.
Time Management
Some deadlines may be shortly after the delivery of the material, some quite a way off, and this may well differ for different cohorts of students. This mixture mirrors the graduate world of work, and the requirements of your final year programme, so you are advised to plan ahead! Anticipate a few days of ill-health that might impact on your ability to complete assignments on time, and start wok early on items with far-off deadlines. Mastering time management is one of the most essential goals you should set yourself. To help you, every course where there are assessments/assignments/deadlines will have all the deadline dates available to you within the ‘Assessments’ area of Blackboard in the left hand menu. Any non-course-specific deadlines, such as essays, can be found in the Tutorials courses on Blackboard. Please note that it is possible that some dates may be adjusted throughout the semester at the Unit Coordinators discretion, therefore you should check your deadlines for each course regularly and complete work as early as possible.
Plagiarism, collusion and other forms of academic malpractice
These topics form an important part of the first stage of the Writing and Referencing skills modules in Y1 & 2 but general guidelines and advice are given hereunder.
Plagiarism is a serious offence - it is treated as seriously as cheating in exams.
- As a student, you are expected to cooperate in the learning process throughout your programme of study by completing assignments of various kinds that are the product of your own study or research. Coursework, dissertations and essays submitted for assessment must be your own work, unless in the case of group projects a joint effort is expected and this has been indicated by the Unit Coordinator. For most students this does not present a problem, but occasionally, whether unwittingly or otherwise, a student may commit what is known as plagiarism, or some other form of academic malpractice, when carrying out an assignment. This may come about because students have been used to different conventions in their prior educational experience or through general ignorance of what is expected of them or of what constitutes plagiarism.
- This guidance is designed to help you understand what we regard as academic malpractice and hence to help you to avoid committing it. You should read it carefully, because academic malpractice is regarded as a serious offence and students found to have committed it will be penalized. At the very least a mark of only 30% would be awarded for the piece of work in question, but it could be worse; you could be awarded zero (with or without loss of credits), fail the whole unit, be demoted to a lower class of degree, or be excluded from the programme, depending on the severity of the case.
Academic malpractice includes plagiarism, collusion, fabrication or falsification of results and anything else intended by those committing it to achieve credit that they do not properly deserve. You will be given exercises and guidance on plagiarism/academic malpractice in tutorials and if you are unsure about any aspect of this you should ask your Academic Tutor for advice. In addition, further guidance is available on the intranet (see ‘Plagiarism - Resources for avoiding Plagiarism’ which includes helpful exercises and explanations relating to plagiarism and referencing on the web. There is also information in My Learning Essentials. It is well worth visiting these sites in your spare time to ensure that you fully understand.
All students are required to confirm that they have read and agree to the University’s declaration on Academic Malpractice as part of the online registration process.
Further information on Academic Malpractice and how to avoid it can be found at www.regulations.manchester.ac.uk/guidance-to-students-on-plagiarism-and-other-forms-of-academic-malpractice/.
The University uses electronic systems for the purposes of detecting plagiarism and other forms of academic malpractice and for marking. Such systems include TurnitinUK, the plagiarism detection service used by the University.
As part of the formative and/or summative assessment process, you may be asked to submit electronic versions of your work to TurnitinUK and/or other electronic systems used by the University (this requirement may be in addition to a requirement to submit a paper copy of your work). If you are asked to do this, you must do so within the required timescales.
The School also reserves the right to submit work handed in by you for formative or summative assessment to TurnitinUK and/or other electronic systems used by the University.
Please note that when work is submitted to the relevant electronic systems, it may be copied and then stored in a database to allow appropriate checks to be made.
You will be given an opportunity within the tutorials to submit a draft essay through this system, and it is very much in your best interests to do this so that you understand how it works.
Please see the document Guidance to students on plagiarism and other forms of academic malpractice.
eLearning (Blackboard)
As a student at the University of Manchester, you will find that many of your units contain sections of work that you have to complete online (known as electronic (e)Learning). The University uses a website-like environment for this called Blackboard.
Online eLearning support for your course means that it is easy to fit your learning into your everyday life, as you can complete the work from almost any computer in the world with an internet connection. We are encouraging the use of students’ own mobile devices to support teaching and learning in lectures and tutorials. However, if the session requires a mobile device and you do not have one, one will be supplied.
Your eLearning work will often have strict deadlines and marks will be awarded for successful completion of assessments. Every Blackboard course is different, so read the rules regarding the course before you start, to ensure that you don’t miss any work.
Technical support from the eLearning team is available between 9:00 and 17:00 on all working days. This is accessible by selecting ‘Technical Support’ and then ‘eLearning enquiries’ from the menu bar on the left of your online courses; the eLearning team will reply to your University email address.
More information on eLearning in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health can be found here http://bmh-elearning.org./technical-support/.
Practical assessments
Most of the practicals will require you to do some background reading before the session, so please come prepared.
Practical work is assessed either as written work that you hand in during or at the end of a unit, your ability to perform a task during a practical session, and/or as an online assessment or examination at the end of the unit. Details of assessment will be given to you at the start of each unit.
If you fail to attend a practical class you may not submit a report for that practical without the prior written agreement of the Unit Coordinator (which should be recorded in the report). Also, if you fail to submit an assessment by the due date and time, it will not normally be possible for it to be marked. If ill-health prevents you attending a practical session or meeting a submission deadline, see the Section Guidelines on ill health.
NB: In many practical classes you will work as one of a pair or larger group of students. Be careful that you feel confident with all the procedures yourself and do not leave it to others to do tasks for you: remember, in the exam you will be on your own. Furthermore, although you will most likely obtain results as part of a group, it is essential that any practical work that you submit for assessment is written in your own words, unless you have been specifically instructed to submit a group report (see Section Plagiarism, collusion and other forms of academic malpractice).
The compensation rules for examinations (see Section Pass marks and compensation rules) (Level 1) (Level 2) will only be applied if you pass the practical assessments AND fulfil the attendance requirement for practical units.
Tutorial assessments
Most of the work submitted in tutorials is assessed. You must obtain a pass mark on this work to be able to pass your Examinations in Year 1 and 2. If you obtain a mean mark of <40% for your tutorial work, OR if your attendance is unsatisfactory, you will fail the tutorial assessment and will be required to write an extended essay during the summer vacation.
The compensation rules for examinations (see Section Pass marks and compensation rules (Level 1) (Level 2)) will only be applied if you pass the tutorial assessments AND fulfil the attendance requirement for tutorials units.
Assessments associated with data handling and Writing and Referencing Skills are monitored for the work elements of the Work and Attendance Regulations (see Section Work and attendance regulations (Level 1) (Level 2)) and are also part of the tutorial assessment. Failure to complete these assessments satisfactorily will result in failure of the tutorial, and you will be required to complete tutorial referral work over the summer vacation.
The marks for tutorial assessments and Writing and Referencing Skills units in Years 1 & 2 are not included in the calculation of your mean mark for the year.
Examinations
The First Year Examinations consist of written papers, normally of one-hour duration, in each of the first-level lecture units.
Written exams will be sat during the examination period at the end of the semester in which the unit is taught (i.e. January or May/June). Units that run across both semesters will normally be examined in the May/June exam period. Units taken from other Schools may be examined at a different time.
Students should note the requirement of taking and displaying their student card in all examinations as proof of their identity. Attendance at all appropriate examinations is compulsory.
To prepare for examinations, you are encouraged to use any quizzes and practice exercises posted on Blackboard and to look at copies of past examination papers. These can be obtained from the My Learning tab in your MyManchester portal, where you can search for papers by Faculty, School, exam name or code, year or semester. If the unit has no past papers the Unit Coordinator should make questions that are representative of the kind that will be set in the examination available at least 6 weeks before the exam which will be representative of the kind that will be set in the examination.
You will normally be expected to pass all the units you have taken before you can proceed to the next academic year. However, compensation may be possible if you fail a unit by a small amount, when the examiners may allow you an overall "compensated pass" (see Section Pass marks and compensation rules (Level 1) (Level 2). Otherwise, all units failed must be re-taken during the August/September examination period (see Section August/September referrals).
You may not normally start the next academic year of your degree programme until you have passed the Examinations in your current academic year, so failure again in August/September may lead to you being excluded from further courses and examinations in the School of Biological Sciences.
Multiple choice examinations
All units in the First Year Examinations and a few in Second Year Examinations will be examined wholly or partly by Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs). You are advised:
- that you must take your Student Card to all examinations and write your Registration ID number and name on the answer sheet.
- to follow carefully all written instructions for filling out the answer sheet.
- to make yourself familiar with the various rubrics that we use by looking at past examination papers.
- to read the rubric to questions carefully. For example, one rubric may ask you to choose the one MOST SUITABLE option and another may ask you to identify the one INCORRECT option.
- to read the questions carefully. A good MCQ is intended to make you think.
- that answers must be indicated legibly on the answer sheet provided. If an answer is illegible, you will be given a score of zero for that question - the examiner will not try to decipher hieroglyphs! If you decide to change an answer, you must erase the original answer completely and write your new answer in its place. A pencil, preferably B or softer, should be used - make sure you take an eraser and pencil sharpener to the examination.
- that all MCQs in the School, unless otherwise stated, are marked by a technique that includes a negative correction for wrong answers. The correction that is subtracted for each wrong answer is 1/(n-1), where n is the number of options. This is intended to ensure that you will gain no benefit from guessing at random. Questions that are not answered will score zero. Despite this negative marking, unless the number of options is few (three or fewer), it is to your advantage to make informed guesses, i.e. if you know some of the options can be excluded, you should make a guess at the other options. On average you will gain more marks when you get these informed guesses right than you will lose when you get them wrong.
Short answer questions and essay-type questions are NOT negatively marked. You will not lose marks for incorrect material (but will not gain any either) so it is worth writing something, even if you are not sure it is correct.
Criteria and marking for answers on theory examination papers
Criteria for marking theory papers is available on the Faculty intranet: https://app.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/public/downloads.aspx?docId=131640.
Guidelines on feedback to students
Feedback is a broad term, which can be interpreted in different ways. The purpose of this section is to define the activities associated with feedback mechanisms, as they relate to lecture-based BIOL units so that you are aware of the feedback available for any unit which you decide to take.
Lecturers are expected to provide general guidance to students on appropriate reading material and other learning resources for the unit in advance of the start of the unit on Blackboard.
We encourage you to ask questions both during lectures or later during the year when, for example, you are revising for exams. However, if the lecture course has finished, then we suggest that you seek confirmation of the answer to your own question. What do we mean by this? Lecturers are unlikely to respond favourably to questions phrased along the lines of ‘Can you tell me the answer to this? Thus, if you want to ask a question, particularly by email, please make sure you include your own interpretation of the answer, including the literature sources that you used, and ask only for confirmation that you are correct. For example:
Wrong format: Can you tell me the primary role of voltage-gated sodium channels?
Correct format: It is my understanding that voltage-gated sodium channels are primarily responsible for the depolarising phase of the action potential. I used Kandel’s Principles of Neuroscience to obtain this information. Is this correct?
NB: The School does not normally publish marking schemes or answers to examination questions - you are expected to deduce these yourself using text books, peers, and PASS sessions.
In addition to providing the mandatory level of feedback, Unit Coordinators may provide more detailed feedback on your work. You should consult the feedback entry within the unit description in this handbook for further details on the additional feedback provided.
Examination feedback
Students have a right to receive feedback on their examination performance from Unit Coordinators. This may be done in a number of ways. A Unit Coordinator may
- publish a general feedback document outlining how questions were answered, addressing general strengths and weaknesses of students and giving a general indication of how well the questions were answered.
- hold a feedback session, to which students are invited.
- review an answer paper for a student and summarise his/her feedback via email.
- provide online feedback.
A student may seek individual feedback, in which the Unit Coordinator will obtain their exam scripts and report feedback on their answers including, where appropriate, any written comments recorded on the manuscript. A student does not, however, have the right to challenge any academic judgements on the quality of the answer. This means there is NO opportunity for papers to be re-marked.