Academic Standards Regulations
Policy Statement
The School is committed to maintaining rigorous academic standards, in particular, in alignment with the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (FHEQ) and Office for Students (OfS) sector-recognised standards. We ensure all students meet high levels of performance, uphold integrity, fairness, and excellence in assessments, and foster a supportive learning environment to produce well-prepared and highly competent graduates.
Principles
- Excellence: Aspiring to attain the highest levels of educational quality in every programme and module offered.
- Alignment: Ensuring curricula are aligned with the latest sector-recognised standards and professional requirements.
- Relevance: Preparing students with knowledge and skills that are current, applicable, and transferable to real-world settings.
- Consistency: Achieving uniformity across the School's academic offerings that reflect sector-recognised standards.
- Engagement: Actively involving all stakeholders in the continuous development and enhancement of educational content.
- Adaptability: Responsively updating programmes to keep pace with changes in the sector standards and practices.
- Integrity: Upholding the academic integrity, ensuring honest and ethical educational practices.
- Rigour: Applying stringent academic criteria to guarantee intellectual challenge and depth.
- Accountability: Holding all levels of the institution accountable for maintaining recognised sector standards.
- Innovation: Fostering a culture of innovation that embraces new ideas and approaches in line with sector developments.
- Accessibility: Providing educational opportunities that are inclusive and accessible to a diverse student population.
- Sustainability: Committing to the long-term sustainability of our programmes by embedding sector standards within a framework of continuous review and improvement.
Regulatory Context
This Policy has been developed in line with the applicable laws, regulations, regulatory advice, and sector best practices, including the following:
| Authority | Name | Url |
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| UK Government |
Higher Education and Research Act 2017 (HERA)
A UK legislation that reformed the higher education and research sector, particularly by establishing the Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation. |
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| Office for Students (OfS) |
Regulatory framework for higher education in England
This framework outlines OfS' primary aim to ensure positive outcomes for students, including access, success, and progress in higher education. It covers quality academic experience, progress into employment, and value for money. |
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| Office for Students (OfS) |
Regulatory Notices and Advice
Regulatory notices are additional information about OfS' regulatory requirements and are part of the regulatory framework. Regulatory advice helps providers understand and meet OfS requirements. |
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| Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) |
Code of Practice for Higher Education
Guidance for higher education providers on their obligations under equality law. |
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| Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) |
The Quality Code
This code represents a shared understanding of quality practice across the UK higher education sector, protecting public and student interests and championing the UK's reputation for quality. |
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| Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) |
Subject Benchmark Statement - Computing
It describes the nature and characteristics of awards in computing and what graduates are expected to know, understand and be able to do. |
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| Office for Students (OfS) |
Sector-recognised standards
The standards set with regards to B5 and B8 of the OfS' conditions of registration for higher education institutions. |
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Academic Programmes and Awards
A 'programme' is a discrete body of teaching and learning with programme outcomes within a subject discipline that the School has approved as leading to an award of a qualification in the OfS' sector-recognised standards on the successful attainment of the requisite number of credits and descriptors contained in the sector-recognised standards. It consists of modules, related to the programme discipline, and may have several levels. The School's programmes ensure students achieve high performance levels, uphold integrity, fairness, and excellence in assessments, fostering a supportive learning environment to produce well-prepared, highly competent graduates. |
The qualifications that the School can award for a programme upon the successful attainment of the required number of credits and descriptors in accordance with the OfS’ sector-recognised standards are:
Award classification algorithms and classification bands are contained in the Module, Progression, and Award Regulations This ensures that our qualifications, including taught master's degrees (e.g. MSc), postgraduate diplomas, postgraduate certificates, bachelor's degrees with honours (e.g. BSc Hons), bachelor's degrees, graduate diplomas, graduate certificates, Diplomas of Higher Education (DipHE), and Certificates of Higher Education (CertHE), meet recognised sector standards. |
The Programme Examination Board (PEB) can award one of these awards as an exit award provided that a student otherwise successfully attains the required number of credits and meets the relevant descriptors for that award. Please see Module Results and Award Conferment Regulations. This policy ensures that students who do not complete their programme can still receive a qualification appropriate to their achieved credits. |
Credit Distribution and Academic Weighting
The School awards higher education qualifications based on demonstrated achievement of outcomes rather than years of study, as per OfS principles. Qualifications are awarded through a credit and descriptor-based system, validated by the School's Programme Approval Rules in its New Programme and Module Approval and Modification Regulations. |
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The School uses the Credit Accumulation and Transfer System (CATS). This ensures that qualifications are awarded based on achieved outcomes, using a credit and descriptor-based system, in line with the OfS principles and the School's Programme Approval Rules. |
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To be awarded a qualification for a programme, the required number of credits a student must successfully attain, in accordance with the OfS’ sector-recognised standards, are:
These too are built into the School's Programme Approval Rules. This ensures that all qualifications meet the recognised sector standards. |
Descriptors and Frameworks for Academic Qualifications
The School adheres to the OfS qualification descriptors, SEEC Credit Level Descriptors for Higher Education, and relevant Subject Matter Benchmarks for its programmes and modules. This ensures that all qualifications meet the baseline achievements required for each level, in line with OfS sector-recognised standards. |
The School uses descriptors for setting modules at each level, based on Knowledge and Understanding, Intellectual Skills, Technical/Practical Skills, and Professional/Transferable Skills. Students must attain the requisite credits, through summative assessments, to complete a given level. This ensures that outcomes and also generic assessment criteria at Levels 4-7 accurately capture student classifications, based on SEEC Credit Level Descriptors, relevant Subject Matter Benchmarks, and OfS sector-recognised standards. |
Modules and Teaching Systems
The School's programmes use core and optional modules to enable students to earn the necessary credits for progression and/or qualifications. Each module is a distinct unit of learning at a specific level, with defined subject matter, credit volume, learning outcomes, and summative assessments. This approach ensures a balanced range of core and optional modules across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, as detailed in the programme documentation and specification. |
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Core modules are compulsory modules that all students on a programme must undertake to fulfil the fundamental requirements of their programme, ensuring they gain essential knowledge and skills. Optional modules, on the other hand, allow students to choose electives based on their interests or career objectives, providing the flexibility to specialise in particular areas and tailor their educational experience to their individual preferences. The School offers core modules to ensure all students gain essential knowledge, while optional modules provide flexibility to pursue personal interests and specialisations. |
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These modules are core for the following qualifications:
This ensures that students complete a significant, integrative project as part of their qualification, demonstrating their learning and skills. |
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The School ensures effective teaching across all undergraduate and postgraduate modules by aligning credits and activities with the module's subject matter. This approach maximises students' academic experience and success by using tailored teaching systems for different module types:
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Summative assessments are based on the subject matter and teaching system of each module, and must be aligned with programme and module outcomes. Module leaders are responsible for summative assessments, and work closely with external examiners. Standards for providing timely and constructive feedback to students, and on academic integrity, are set out in the Assessment Regulations. This ensures that assessments accurately measure students' achievement of the required outcomes for earning credits, supporting the overall programme qualifications and standards. |
Credit-Bearing Short Courses
Once a module is formally validated by the Academic Board, it can be used for delivering stand-alone credit-bearing short courses. Students may register for these short courses and later enrol in an award programme, using the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and Experience (RPE) process. However, they do so at their own risk as future availability and module requirements cannot be guaranteed. See the Short Courses (Non-Credit and Credit-Bearing) Regulations and RPL and RPE Regulations for details. |
Programme and Module Approval
To ensure compliance with OfS sector-recognised standards, the School’s undergraduate and postgraduate programmes must meet baseline credit values and descriptors via the following approval rules:
All programmes must satisfy these approval rules before they can be marketed and delivered. The approval process involves four stages:
Documentation in Stages 3 and 4 must align with the OfS sector-recognised standards. This multi-stage approval process ensures that all programmes meet the required credit values and descriptors, maintaining consistency and quality in line with OfS sector-recognised standards before they are offered to students. |
New modules proposed separately from programme approval must adhere to baseline credit values and School descriptors, following the New Programme and Module Approval and Modification Regulations. This ensures that all modules, whether developed alongside programmes or independently, meet the required standards before they can be approved for marketing and delivery. |
Faculty proposing a module as a credit-bearing short course must follow the same approval process as for programme approval, including strategic, operational, and academic stages overseen by the Academic Board. The process is expected to be less extensive than full programme approval. This ensures that credit-bearing short courses meet the same standards as programmes. Such courses will:
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The School uses generic assessment criteria at Levels 4-7, based on SEEC Credit Level Descriptors and relevant Subject Matter Benchmarks, aligned with OfS sector-recognised standards, to classify student outcomes. These must be considered in preparing programme and module approval documents. This ensures consistency and alignment in assessments across all levels by focusing on:
Module leaders must consult these criteria when drafting and marking summative assessments to uphold overall standards. |
The Academic Board, as the senior academic authority, oversees programme approval, module approval, credit-bearing short course approval, and the generic assessment criteria. This ensures rigorous and consistent evaluation of all academic matters and adherence to regulatory standards, which are reviewed at either ad hoc or regular meetings of the Academic Board. |
All approval rules and generic assessment criteria, based on baseline credit values and descriptors, will be automated in the School’s Automated Governance System (AGS). This automation allows the Academic Board to ensure that all programmes and modules meet the required credit values and descriptors before they are marketed and delivered, in line with the Organisational Structure, Governance, and Declaration of Interests Statement. |
The following metrics will be measured and regularly reviewed as key performance indicators for the School to ensure the effectiveness of this policy and associated operations.
Accuracy of Stage 3 Documentation Submission
Percentage of Stage 3 submissions (including business case, draft specifications, CVs, stakeholder engagement outcomes, and external reports) accepted by the Academic Board without the need for additional corrections, with a target of 95% accuracy. This KPI focuses on the completeness and accuracy of the documentation provided in Stage 3, ensuring that all required information meets Academic Development requirements initially. |
Approval Rate for Operational Fulfilment Documents
Percentage of operational fulfilment documents in Stage 2 that receive approval from the Director of Operations and are forwarded to the Executive Committee without requiring further amendments, aiming for 100% approval. This KPI ensures that operational documents are correctly prepared and meet Operational Approval Rules from the outset, streamlining the approval process and avoiding delays. |
Compliance Rate for Stage 4 Submissions
Percentage of Stage 4 documents reviewed by the Academic Board that fully meet academic approval rules and receive a decision without requiring further revisions, targeting a 100% compliance rate. This KPI assesses the effectiveness of initial Stage 4 submissions in meeting Academic Approval Rules, ensuring programmes are compliant and ready for final approval without delays. |
Initial Submission Acceptance Rate for Stage 1 Documents
Percentage of business cases submitted for Strategic Approval that are accepted without needing significant revisions or resubmissions, targeting a 95% acceptance rate. This KPI measures the quality and completeness of initial business case submissions, ensuring they meet Strategic Approval Rules and reduce delays caused by incomplete proposals. |
Timeliness of Document Submissions Across Approval Stages
Percentage of documents (business case, operational fulfilment, and Stage 3/4 submissions) submitted on schedule for each approval stage without requesting extensions or resubmissions, aiming for 100% adherence to deadlines. This KPI ensures that all required documents are submitted within the prescribed deadlines, promoting efficient processing and adherence to the approval timeline for all programme stages. |