New marking scheme provokes student backlash

Plans set forth by the University which would alter the way degrees are assessed – including a larger gap between possible marks for 2:1 and first classifications – have met resistance from both the student and academic community.

The piloting of a new ‘17 Grade Point Marking Scale’ will be trailed this year across 11 departments, although it will not count towards the degrees of students affected. If the scheme is adopted, it would come into effect next year pending any changes.

Academics in the Faculty of Arts and Social Studies directly opposed to the scheme have reportedly spoken to – among others – Rob Marks, the creator of the Facebook group, ‘Your Degree Classification is at Risk’, who was informed that although the scheme is only being piloted this year, many consider its implementation to be a ‘fait accompli’.

The Students’ Union has come out, both last year and this year, as being ‘broadly in favour’ of the pilot scheme, without as of yet putting the issue to the entire student body, although SSLCs across departments are being consulted on the matter.

The Union’s actions have caused controversy, with over 650 students joining the Facebook group ‘Your Degree Classification is at Risk’ to voice protest at this decision. One issue the Union does have with the new scheme is the significant space between its marks for a classification of 2:1 and a first. Although marks within a 2:1 are staged in gaps of 3 (62, 65, 68), there is a 6 point gap to 74, the lowest mark possible to obtain a first. The Students’ Union has suggested a mark of 71 to fill in this gap.

‘Your Degree Classification is at Risk’ aims to highlight that although the Students’ Union was publicly in favour of the scheme, many students were unaware of the proposed scheme and the Union’s support of it as a whole, and felt they hadn’t been adequately consulted on the decision to begin trialing the scheme.

The group creator, Rob Marks, was swiftly called to attend a meeting with the Education Officer & Deputy President, Peter Ptashko, and the President of the Students’ Union, Joe Kirby.

Marks maintains that the meeting was “entirely constructive”, and resulted in the Union issuing a statement regarding both the scheme and the Facebook group, as well as calling for a clarification of a number of “factual errors” regarding the two.

In the issued statement, the Union conceded that “last year there should have been a higher level of consultation, and there should be yet more of this” with the student body.

The Union claims that “the current ‘100 Point Marking Scale’ isn’t fully utilised by departments within the Arts and Social Studies Faculty” as most marks tend to fall within the 40 to 70% range. The Union says this “defeats the object of such a broad scale”.

The pilot scheme would offer marks of 74, 81, 89 or 96 for the classification of First, which the Union insists will rewards students with “higher marks for excellent pieces of work”. The Union also suggest that the “discrepancy across departments within these faculties is unfair to students, as individual departments often choose to apply the ‘100 Point Marking Scale’ as they see fit – leaving significant variations in”, giving the example of the number of Firsts awarded across departments.

This 17-point scale would also, the Union claims, work to “more clearly rationalise [marks] to both students and staff” as “departments and students can clearly assign pieces of work to marks, without having to decide between 62s and 63s”.

Finally, the Union suggests that under the 17-point system, calculating final degree grades would be easier, “The pilot scheme would enable the simple mean to be used when calculating final degree awards, as opposed to the current complicated formula worked out through a combination of an aver-age and the number of ‘First’ awarded pieces of work and ‘2:1’ awarded pieces of work a student receives,” said the Union.

The Union also cites a more political reason for broadly supporting the Scheme, “The Quality Assurance Agency institutionally audits universities roughly every five years. In our last two audits we have been informed that we must improve our marking conventions. Our next audit is next year. Should we fail to change our current system, or be seen to start changing it, Warwick is at risk of being awarded a verdict of ‘Limited Confidence’, when all Russell Group Universities simply must receive verdicts of ‘Confidence’ - Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, imperial, Manchester, Leeds etc. should and will receive this verdict. Should we receive the former, we will drop down the league tables (certainly out the top 10, possibly out the top 20) and our degrees then really will be devalue[d]”.

Both students and academics are asking whether or not the scheme was being rushed through by the University over the past year, before the QAA’s next institutional Audit in Autumn 2008.

Whatever the dialogue between academic departments and the University over this have been since the last audit, the Students’ Union appears in no doubt of its position: “The Students’ Union does not want to see students’ degree values drop as a result of an external audit result, and supports the trialling [sic] of a new scheme which is fairer for students than is the current one, however, we would like to have seen this introduced sooner. We would like to reinforce that this University marking scheme is by no means final, and by no means perfect. Once the results are revealed we want to invite all students to judge for themselves whether the scheme is fit for purpose or not. Nothing will be forced through for audit, as long as the institution is seen to be changing its somewhat archaic marking criteria, students will benefit all round”.

In the same vein of consultation, the Students’ Union and the Facebook group’s creator have organised a public meeting this week to inform students further and enable discussion about the scheme with experts and Union representatives. The meeting will be held on Wednesday 5th December (Week 10) and will be from 4-6pm in Humanities room H0.52