Recommendations from the Students’ Union Feedback Campaign, the summary of SSLC
annual reports, and SU Top Ten for consideration by departments
Department of Chemistry response
1
Recommendation
Investigate why feedback isn’t being
returned in the three week timeframe set out
by the QA Code of Practice. Attempt to
discern whether there are any potential
systems that could be rendered more
efficient. (Recommendation 11 from SSLC
annual report, Recommendation 1 from
Feedback Campaign)
Department feedback
Within the Department of Chemistry, feedback on
coursework mainly relates to lab reports. The vast
majority of reports are marked within the three week
timeframe, and feedback offered to students within this
period, though this is not always taken up. In the past
there has been an issue with feedback on the first part of
the Advanced Practical Chemistry unit (CH30043), though
this has been dealt with in 2013-14. For Years 1 and 2,
the feedback on lab reports was sometimes not quick
enough, but this was for a relatively small proportion of
reports and was lecturer-dependent. Particularly
problematic units have been identified, and the staff
involved will be asked to ensure there is consistency and
effective feedback for these units.
There was some discussion at DLTQC of the problems for
lecturers when a large volume of assessments had to be
marked at the same time. In these cases there is a
balance between depth and timeliness, with detailed
feedback not always possible if the timeframe is to be
kept to. It was also noted that for many cases the
students would be able to see their marked, annotated
lab reports, but not necessarily be able to take them
away at that time as other students had yet to hand in
their reports on the same experiments.
Exam feedback is largely dictated by the processes and
time constraints of this period, so detailed feedback
cannot always be given within three weeks. Although
generic feedback can be given before the exam boards
have met, this may be of limited use to students.
2
Departments to look into providing general
exam feedback via Moodle. Departments to
promote the availability of this feedback
once it has been up loaded.
(Recommendation 12 from SSLC annual
report)
(QA16 states “Continuing students should
receive feedback on their academic
performance in formal written examinations, but
this need not necessarily be individual
feedback.”)
General exam feedback is already provided via Moodle.
This is addition to the core chemistry Year 1 and 2 units
for which detailed individual feedback is made available
for all students following the Exam Board meetings. For
this year, we will trial allowing all students to see their
exam papers if they make an appointment on a specific
date.
3
As noted in 2), Year 1 and 2 students already have access
to their core chemistry exam papers after the January
exams. We will seek to extend this to the other units
assessed in January, trialling a system whereby all
students will have the opportunity to make an
appointment to see their exam scripts on a specific date.
We will also do this in the summer for the May exam
papers. However, it is recognised that exam scripts have
to be archived according to University regulations, so
students would not be able to keep their scripts.
Explore opportunities to give students
greater access to their exam scripts.
(Recommendation 20 from SSLC annual
report).
(QA16 states “At the discretion of the Head of
Department and in alignment with departmental
policies on feedback, students may be given
access to their examination scripts …”)
4
Departments to consider spreading
deadlines of all submitted work and to
establish a submission calendar; e.g. for
courseworks and lab reports.
(Recommendation 17 from SSLC annual
report).
Most deadlines occur during the last few weeks
of term. It would appear that students are not
always receiving their assignments far enough in
advance which contributes to the problems with
deadlines for coursework.
5
University to investigate where anonymous
marking can be implemented and to
implement procedures to ensure this occurs.
(Recommendation 21 from SSLC annual
report).
This recommendation will also be considered by
ULTQC.
Assessments in Chemistry are already fairly well
distributed. Although there is no calendar as such,
students are given adequate notice of upcoming
submissions, with lab report submission dates published
at the beginning of each course. The construction of a
submission calendar had been tried before within the
department and had been felt to be quite a lot of trouble
for little gain. There was no support for trying to reestablish this.
Anonymous marking of lab reports was discussed and felt
to be generally unworkable in practice, though it was
noted that coursework on the relatively small Topics in
Computational Chemistry unit was submitted
anonymously. For bigger lab classes it was felt that
anonymous marking would make the process of giving
feedback very cumbersome. Given that the majority of
marks in Years 1 and 2 come from examinations, which
are already marked anonymously, there was felt to be
little additional gain in this proposal at a very high price.
Although easier to achieve, there was no enthusiasm to
bring in anonymous marking of project reports – since
allocations of projects to supervisors had to be published,
projects cannot be truly marked anonymously because
the subject matter would enable students to be readily
identified.
6
There is very little group marking done in the Department
of Chemistry. A small contribution to some drug
discovery units comes from group marking, but this is
well below the 7% threshold mentioned in QA16 and is
coupled with individual marking.
Develop policies on fairer group work
marking. (SU 2013/14 Top Ten issue)
Departments are requested to provide
information on mechanisms they have in place
to ensure fair group work marking.
(QA16 states “Where a unit is assessed by
groupwork and makes a significant contribution
(7% or more) to the final classification, the Unit
Convenor must ensure that the assessment is
devised in such a way that includes an element
of individual assessment and the boundary
1
between cooperation and collusion is made
clear to students at the outset. Setting an
assessment which only entails a mean mark
being awarded to all members of the group will
not normally be appropriate. Similarly individual
feedback should be provided where
appropriate.”)
7
Develop and utilise feedback sheets that
encourage constructive feedback and meet
the feedback requirements of students.
(Recommendation 2 from the SU Feedback
Campaign)
Feedback sheets are already in place for project-based
units and the talks that form part of the industrial
training units. It will be discussed within the department
whether this can be broadened to other units.
8
Departmental Feedback Policies, and any
subsequent updated versions, to be put on
the department Moodle pages in an easily
accessible manner so that they are readily
available to all students of that department.
(Recommendation 5 from the SU Feedback
Campaign)
The Departmental Feedback Policy is already available on
the Chemistry Undergraduate Hub Moodle page, to
which all chemistry students (and natural sciences
students taking chemistry units) are enrolled on.
All recommendations relating to the provision of
information to students will be considered
centrally by the Public Information
Subcommittee. The effectiveness of Feedback
Policies is also being reviewed by the SU and
the LTEO.
At present it is QA CoP requirement that
Feedback Policies are included in Programme
Handbooks. Departments are asked to
comment specifically on what they consider to
be the best mechanism(s) to communicate
feedback policies to both staff and students.
9
Investigate the potential to create marking
sheets to be used across all programmes as
standard. (Recommendation 8, SU Feedback
Campaign)
Marking sheets = marking schemes, marking
grids providing detailed assessment and grading
criteria.
In relation to coursework QA16 states that inter
alia students should “receive the assessment
criteria and any relevant grading criteria.”
2
Marking sheets are already used for project marking. The
assessment and grading criteria are made available on
the relevant Moodle pages. It will be discussed within
the department whether this can be broadened to other
units.
10
Meetings with personal tutors should be
timetabled where possible and in accordance
with QA33. (Recommendation 7 from SSLC
annual report)
Timetabled = in the timetable at the beginning of
the semester, and not arranged on an ad hoc
basis by the personal tutor.
Tutorials for first and second year students are already
timetabled, ensuring most students (including ALL first
year students) have on their timetables meetings to see
their personal tutors at least three times per semester. It
was not felt that anything more needs to be done about
this. The personal tutor system is robust and well
received already within the department, and there is an
emphasis on the fact that meetings are not optional.
This recommendation has also been referred to
the Senior Tutors Forum for consideration.
Departments are specifically asked to consider
whether QA33 be revised to make it a
requirement that personal tutorials be
timetabled.
11
12
Action on Departments organising the OUEs
for modules provided by multiple
departments to share with all relevant
departments. Action plans from the hosting
department to be communicated to the
relevant departments. (Recommendation 15,
SSLC annual report)
OUE results are currently sent to the relevant unit
convenors, and will also be sent to the relevant DoS team
member starting this academic year. It might be useful
to see OUEs from relevant management and education
units, and the possibility of this should be investigated.
Reading lists to be sent at least 10 weeks
before the start of semester one to students
and to the Departmental Librarian, so that
the students can have sufficient time to
analyse the list and so that the Departmental
Librarians have adequate time to update
their collection. (Recommendation 18, SSLC
annual report).
This was discussed, but 10 weeks was felt to be
impractical to provide complete and accurate
information of all recommended reading given that
teaching assignments for the next academic year are
often not known at this stage. However, information
about core texts can be provided at this stage.
The biggest issue with OUEs from the Department's
perspective is the poor response rate which often
renders the results meaningless.
The Library has indicated that it would prefer to
receive reading lists prior to students so that
they have sufficient time to order materials.
Library would also like reading lists to make
clear which books are core / supplementary etc.
Departments to consider specifically making it a
requirement of the QA Code of Practice that
reading lists are provided to the Library 10
weeks before the start of semester 1(with
reading lists being made available to students
shortly after this deadline) and that the
importance of the reading materials (core or
supplementary) be indicated.
This recommendation will also be considered by
the Public Information Subcommittee.
3
13
Departments with optional modules to look
into recording lecture samples for
publication with optional module
information, so that future students can
make a more informed decision. Use of
Panopto should be encouraged as a teaching
resource. (Recommendation 19 from SSLC
annual report).
This recommendation is also being considered
by the Public Information Subcommittee.
Use of Panopto within the department is encouraged,
and the level of uptake is increasing. Panopto use be
discussed at a Teaching Forum later in the year. Many of
the final year options are available on Panopto, and
students are able to self-register onto the Moodle
courses and sample the content if they wish. There is
already an options Moodle page providing information
about the different optional units, but there was little
appetite to edit the Panopto material and collate samples
onto this page as it was felt this would be too time
consuming. We aim to trial a SSLC-led key skills option
session this year to enable students that have taken
options to inform students about to select theirs.
It was noted that incoming first year students would not
be able to access Moodle, hence wouldn't be able to find
out about their options before arriving at Bath. It was
also noted that the Department was being discouraged
from producing and sending out its Welcome Booklet to
incoming undergraduates (which has information on the
options) as it is out of line in the Faculty. There was a
discussion about whether such information could be
provided on the website, though those with experience
of trying to put material onto the University website were
very discouraged about this - there was a general feeling
that the University website had become so 'corporate'
that it was impossible for departments to control the
information that was made available.
4