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Published for 2024-25
1.1 About
| The overarching principles of assessment provide a framework and reference point for the continuous development and enhancement of taught assessment practices throughout the UCL community of students and staff. The principles aim to: |
| a) | Define the core values underpinning the assessment of students at UCL |
| b) | Promote consistency across UCL, and parity in student experiences of assessment |
| c) | Encourage a mutual understanding of assessment processes and regulations by both students and staff |
| d) | Act as an important reference point for setting and maintaining UCL’s threshold academic standards |
| e) | Act as the starting point for the development and enhancement of assessment processes and regulations, and when applying discretion or academic judgement. |
1.2 The Principles
| Equality | |
| 1. | Assessment processes and regulations must accord with the principles of natural justice and pay due notice to the danger of inadvertent or indirect discrimination or bias, ensuring that, as far as possible, procedures do not bear more heavily on specific groups, particularly with regard to age, disability, gender, race, religion or belief, caring responsibilities, pregnancy or maternity, sexual orientation or assignment, marriage or civil partnership. |
| Assessment Feedback | |
| 2. | Feedback must be timely. Students must be provided with feedback in timescales that ensure they can use the feedback to improve their performance in upcoming related assessments and enhance their broader understanding and skills. |
| 3. | Feedback must enhance learning. The purpose of feedback is to support students to understand how well they have met the assessment brief and to help them improve their performance in the next assessment or module. Feedback to students can satisfy this requirement by providing both a mark justification AND developmental feedback. |
| Assessment Design | |
| 4. | Programme and Module leads/teams must design a clear approach to assessment and explain it to students.Assessments must be aligned clearly with stated learning objectives and outcomes at both programme and module levels, and students must be able to understand the rationale for the assessment design. |
| 5. | Assessments must prepare students for their futures. Assessment designs must meet our dual responsibilities to provide degree credentials that have unquestioned academic integrity while also providing sufficient variety in summative assessments to ensure students are prepared for success in their futures. |
| 6. | ‘Feedback’ should be the central pillar of all assessment design to ensure students are supported to learn optimally from their performance in each assessment. |
| Assessment Requirements | |
| 7. | The UCL Pass Mark represents the minimum, threshold standards which students should meet in order to pass a module, progress through their programme and be awarded a degree. |
| 8. | Faculties, Departments and UCL services must ensure that information for students on all aspects of their assessment is explicit, transparent, targeted towards students, up-to-date and readily available. |
| 9. | The Portico Progression and Award Rules Tool must clearly define the requirements for a student to progress through the programme and be eligible for a qualification and a classification. |
| 10. | Programme regulations must meet UCL’s threshold academic standards, as defined in the UCL Academic Manual. Subject to approval by UCL Education Committee, or its nominee, a programme may set standards above these thresholds. |
| Examinations | |
| 11. | Students must follow the examination conduct regulations and protocols set out in the Examination Guide for Candidates which is published annually on the Examinations and Awards website. |
| Progression and Award | |
| 12. | Qualifications must only be awarded for the successful achievement of defined learning outcomes. |
| 13. | The criteria for Progression and the Award of a degree must be transparent, clearly defined and fair to all students, and aligned with the requirements of the UCL Qualifications and Credit Framework. |
| Reasonable Adjustments | |
| 14. | UCL must make reasonable adjustments to learning, teaching and assessment to support students with a disability or other ongoing medical or mental health condition. |
| 15. | Students should notify UCL of any such condition at the time of enrolment or as soon as possible thereafter so that UCL can put in place the support that the student needs. |
| Marking and Moderation | |
| 16. | Assessment policies and regulations must respect the academic judgement of the internal examiners in relation to a student’s performance against the published marking criteria. |
| 17. | All assessment processes, including marking, second-marking and moderation, should be conducted anonymously unless the nature of the assessment makes this impossible. |
| 18. | Marking must be criterion-referenced and students must be made aware of those criteria in advance. |
| 19. | Marking scales must be transparent and clearly communicated to students in advance of the assessment. |
| 20. | All programmes must include rigorous second-marking and internal moderation processes which promote consistency and fairness. |
| 21. | The assessment process for a programme of study must be scrutinised by an External Examiner. |