Changes to student and academic policies and procedures

Key changes

Academic Appeals

• Reduction from two months to submit an academic appeal, to one month from the publication of the examination committee decision.

• Paragraph added:

Normally the information shared via the academic appeals process will only be viewed by the staff members reviewing the application. If they are sufficiently concerned about a student’s welfare, it may be necessary to give limited information to a third party within the University, e.g. members of the Student Support Services, so extra support can be provided. The person sharing the information would aim to get the student’s permission in advance, but this might not always be possible.

Complaints

• Reduction from two months to submit a complaint, to one month from the date of the incident complained about.

Exceptional Circumstances

• Change of terminology from ‘flare up’ to:

However, a student can apply for exceptional circumstances if they experience (and can provide relevant evidence to substantiate) a specific, temporary change in capability which is related to the ongoing condition (which negatively impacts your ability to study/be assessed), but not covered within the ISP.

• A change (flexibility) to when the final (late) EC application deadline will be. Instead of a rigid fixed point, it may change according to the calendar, for example, it would be changed if a deadline was not suitable for students, for example, if this fell over Christmas break and no-one is in to look at the applications.
  
  The deadlines will still be published well in advance.

• Paragraph added:

Normally the information shared via the exceptional circumstances process will only be viewed by the staff members reviewing the application. If they are sufficiently concerned about a student’s welfare, it may be necessary to give limited information to a third party within the University, e.g. members of the Student Support Services, so extra support can be provided. The person sharing the information would aim to get the student’s permission in advance, but this might not always be possible.

Academic Conduct Procedures

• Removal of penalty:

A requirement to correct a piece of coursework by a prescribed return deadline for a reduced or capped mark. Failure to meet the prescribed return deadline will result in a mark of zero for the relevant module or coursework.

The team have not used this for years and it was an administrative burden for staff and confusing for students 

• Slight change to the AI breach, to remove mention of declaration form (just acknowledgement will be suffice and doesn’t rely on a particular form)

Student Conduct Procedures

• Added intro paragraph to highlight expectations:

1.1 The University requires all students to behave in accordance with University regulations, rules and standards. More information about expectations can be found in the Brookes Behaviour Standards. Where it appears that a student may have breached the rules, the behaviour will be dealt with under these procedures.

• General reorganisation of the breaches to remove duplication and so they are arranged thematically.

• Split the previous breach ‘Sexual harassment, violence or abuse.’ into three separate breaches to provide clarity to students and accuracy in reflecting the behaviour.