SMS MSc Student Handbook 2018/19 Draft original

16. Exercises, Assessments, Examinations, Results and Learning

Exercises

Whilst this is less common at postgraduate level, your module organiser / teacher may set exercises for you during term-time. Should they do so, you must attempt these exercises in your own time, write out neat solutions and hand them in if required. (We sometimes refer to these exercises as “coursework”.) Doing any such exercises is compulsory. Depending on the module, your module organiser / teacher may:

“correct” or write comments on some exercises to provide you with feedback to help you learn

Lecturers will usually provide “model solutions” on QMplus, by mail or in person, which you should use to learn how they would solve the problems. If your solution is different, it may still be correct, although the model solution may be better (e.g. more elegant, more succinct or more sophisticated). For further general information please contact the particular lecturer.

Assessment

Your modules may be assessed in a variety of ways. The majority of the postgraduate taught modules are assessed by written examination. Others have more than one element of assessment which will count towards your final module mark. For these modules you may be required to sit a mid-term test or submit one or multiple courseworks during the semester in which the module is taught, as well as sitting a final examination. The main examination period takes place each year between late April and early June. The lecturer will make the method/s, weighting/s and deadline/s of the module assessment/s for their module clear through the module page on QMplus.

Please note that late submissions for the MSc project will be penalised as follows: for each day that the submission is late, 5 marks will be taken off the 100 marks available for that work. Any submissions made later than 120 hours after the deadline will be given an automatic 'zero' mark [0%].

If you do not achieve a passing mark for any of the taught modules, you are entitled, on one occasion, to resit the examinations/ resubmit the coursework which you have failed. The resits will take place during the late summer resit period, in August of the same calendar year. For precise details about the nature of resit assessments, please contact the relevant lecturer. Students who have resits should note that their module marks are capped at 50% - MSc Mathematics students (only) do not have this 50% cap on any resits.

Examination Timetable

Your individual examination timetable will be available in MySIS towards the end of Semester B. Please check it and report any errors to Registry immediately. In particular, check your resit and first sit entries, if appropriate.

Results

A school examination board (hereafter, 'SEB')will meet in late June at which the appointed external examiners will be asked to confirm the provisional marks awarded for the taught component of the programme. Those provisional marks will then go to the faculty-wide degree examination board (hereafter, 'DEB') for approval, in mid/late July. Once these marks are approved, the marks for the taught modules will then be released to students in late July.

All postgraduate students will be required to submit their MSc project in early September. The external examiners will confirm the provisional dissertation marks awarded at the SEB in early October, and then the provisional MSc project marks (and marks for any late summer resits of taught modules) go to the faculty-wide DEB for approval, in mid/late October. Once these marks are approved, the marks for the MSc project (and marks for any late summer resits of taught modules) will then be released to students in late October / early November.

We do not give results over the phone or by email. Once your results have been released by the School you can access these online via your MySIS profile at http://mysis.qmul.ac.uk. Guides on checking your results on MySIS are available here. Please note that results provided by any SEB are provisional (only), this is because they must be formally approved by the DEB in order to become official. MySIS will indicate whether the results are provisional or confirmed. Queen Mary will release your official results via MySIS following the DEB. If you wish to appeal a result you must follow the Queen Mary appeals process, information regarding this can be found here.

Late Summer Examinations

We will offer you late summer resits of any exams you fail and late summer first sits if there were extenuating circumstances justifying your absence from previous examinations. We will enter you automatically for late summer exams for which you are eligible. You can withdraw but if you are absent then it counts as a fail. Late summer examinations normally take place during the first two weeks of August. The timetable will be available in MySIS by around mid-July.

Your results will be made accessible via MySIS.

Please note that academic staff members are available to help you with your modules during term time, but not generally during vacation periods, and certainly not without you first making an appointment. There is no formal revision period for late summer exams.

Examination Offences

Queen Mary takes your assessment very seriously. This means that we must strictly obey the rules governing assessments and so must you. If calculators are allowed then the examination rubric will state this clearly, so be sure to read the rubric. It is an examination offence to use a calculator in an examination in which calculators are not allowed. It is also an examination offence to take any notes into the examination room even if you do not look at them (unless the exam is open-book), to look at another student's work, to disrupt the examination in any way or to fail to do what an invigilator asks you to do. These rules apply also to class tests.

Learning Development

Learning Development work in a number of ways with students at any level, undergraduate or postgraduate, from any subject discipline, to develop the skills and practices they need to become more effective in their academic work. Areas covered include writing for academic purposes, effective reading, presentation skills, time-management, critical thinking and avoiding plagiarism.

Writing & Study Guidance is offered by Learning Development Advisors in the form of one-to-one tutorials, workshops, drop-ins, retreats and downloadable resources. They also offer a programme of PhD writing development events. In addition, tutorials on writing are offered by the Royal Literary Fund (RLF) Fellows, who are hosted by Learning Development.

Writing & Study Guidance and RLF tutorials are based in the Library on the Mile End Campus. For more information on the range of services which Learning Development offer, and to book a tutorial or workshop, check www.learningdevelopment.qmul.ac.uk.