This is the latest of our newsletters for staff about the work underway to ensure the continuity of Teaching, Learning and Assessment for our students during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Today we are providing updates on:  

• Teaching and Learning in 2020/21
• September Exam Session
• New Tabula Functionality: Missing Mark Adjustment, Scaling and Overall Module Mark Calculation

From next week, we will reduce the number of staff TLA newsletters to one per week on Tuesdays. This is, therefore, the last staff newsletter to be sent on a Friday. We will continue to send student newsletters every Wednesday and upload them on MyWarwick for staff to access.

We are today launching guidance setting out the University’s framework for the delivery of our courses next academic year. The guidance follows extensive engagement with senior teams in academic departments, faculties and professional services in recent weeks. It draws together current thinking in departments, an institutional assessment of what we can feasibly deliver in different scenarios for reopening the campus, and feedback from prospective students about their intentions next year. The framework balances the nuances of different departmental needs with a commitment to ensure parity for students across our many courses.

Our work to develop and enhance our blended learning practices as part of the framework is shaped by the following principles:

• Warwick is predominantly a campus-based, face-to-face institution – and we aim to offer face-to-face (by which we mean physical and campus-based) opportunities where possible;
• We will maximise the quality of ALL of our students’ experiences, whatever constraints are imposed upon us;
• Our online learning activities will be inclusive, active, participatory, purposeful and collaborative;
• Changes in our curriculum and pedagogy are shaped through student engagement and consultation;
• We will ensure students are able to meet programme level learning outcomes;
• The central University will provide departments with the flexibility and support to achieve these principles, as outlined below.

Read the collection of guidance on Teaching and Learning in 2020/21, which we have launched today and will add to in the coming weeks.
 
Next week, we will send a further communication to prospective and returning students setting out our plans for next year, as outlined in the guidance we are publishing to staff today. This will be delivered by the University’s Marketing and Communications Team, who will then work with academic departments to coordinate and support tailored department-specific communications. In the meantime, we ask that the guidance to staff is not shared more widely so that we can ensure students consistently receive the information they need in full.

The September exam session, which runs 02 September to 15 September, will be wholly online, much like the summer exam session that is currently underway. In practice, this means that all assessment running in this session should be in the form of an assignment (coursework) or one of the alternative online methods supported by the University. We do not anticipate needing to make any exceptions to this but would ask departments to notify us via qualitymatters@warwick.ac.uk where this may present issues for compliance with the requirements of Professional, Statutory or Regulatory bodies by 30 June at the latest.
 
Where an assessment component already has a method approved that can be delivered online, departments should continue utilising one of these methods. This will be one of:

• the original method approved in the MA1
• the reassessment method approved in the MA1 (if different from the original method, e.g. a resit essay)
• an alternative online method approved by FAARG and used this summer.

For any other assessment components where the approved method will not suit online delivery (e.g. January exams or practical assessments taken earlier in the year), approval should be sought from Faculty approval groups, and we will publish the timescales for this shortly.

We recognise that some students will have deferred their summer assessments because they do not have an appropriate environment and or access to the right equipment to complete those assessments. When informed about their September assessments, students in these situations will be able to request an on-campus sitting by exception, and we will consider these on a case-by-case basis.

This guidance for staff on September assessments has been published online today, and we will add to it in the coming weeks as plans are confirmed.

As part of our University-wide approach to managing marks and Exam Boards this summer, we are developing Tabula to facilitate the management of marks data in a consistent way across departments. New functionality to implement our operational guidance on adjusting, confirming and sharing module marks has been launched today and is now available for use.

• Missing Marks Adjustment functionality enables departments to code Force Majeure (FM) in place of component marks where the assessment has not taken place due to Covid-19 or industrial action. Tabula will know to discount that mark when calculating the Overall Module Mark.  
  Find out how to record Missing Mark Adjustments.  
   
• Scaling is the process by which a set of marks is raised or lowered (normally to an agreed average or by varying grade boundaries), in order to properly calibrate the performance of the cohort in terms of the achievement of learning outcomes and grade descriptors. Tabula can now apply Scaling to a cohort’s marks where a Module Board agrees this is an appropriate action.
  Find out how to scale marks.
   
• Overall Module Marks can now be calculated directly in Tabula where component marks, grades and Missing Marks Adjustments are also recorded in Tabula.
  Find out how to calculate Overall Module Marks.