How will this situation affect University exams and assessments?

Edinburgh Napier will be concentrating on the time-critical impact on undergraduate students in third, and fourth year and students on postgraduate taught programmes whose results will contribute to their overall degree result. We are also contingency-planning for staff absence and need to ensure that we have enough staff available to manage the final assessments of these students.

To enable this, the following will apply:

For all SCQF level 7 and 8 modules which DO NOT have restrictions set by external Professional, Regulatory and Statutory Bodies (PSRBs):

• Students on SCQF Level 7 and 8 modules undertaken this trimester will automatically receive a pass grade for the module and students will achieve academic credit, but no overall mark for the module;
  
  
• All outstanding assessment, including examinations, will be cancelled for SCQF level 7 and 8 modules delivered this trimester;
  
  
• Programme Assessment Boards will make progression decisions based on performance in Trimester 1, for example, students who have failed any Trimester 1 modules will be required to resit them during the normal resit diet (timing subject to review)

For SCQF level 7 and 8 modules where external restrictions have been set by Professional, Regulatory and Statutory Bodies (PSRBs):

1. A small number of Edinburgh Napier degree programmes have additional standards set by external Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies. We are in the process of checking with individual PSRBs whether we can apply the above changes to these programmes

b. For the following PSRBs we can already confirm that they have agreed the above changes (in (1) above) can also be applied to the level 7 and 8 assessments on programmes accredited by the following:

§  EI The Energy Institute*

§  IET The Institution of Engineering and Technology*

§  BPS British Psychological Society

§  BCS The Chartered Institute for IT

§  NCSC National Cybersecurity Centre

§  CIAT Chartered Institute of Architectural Technologists 

§  RICS Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors

§  CIOB Chartered Institute of Building

§  RSB Royal Society of Biology

§  JBM Joint Board of Moderators which covers the following programmes:

o    MEng Civil Engineering

o    MEng Civil & Transportation Engineering

o    BEng Civil Engineering

o    BEng Civil Engineering (Graduate Apprenticeship)

o    BEng Civil & Transportation Engineering

o    BSc Civil Engineering (no current first or second year students)

            c. For the following PSRBs they have confirmed that we cannot apply the above changes to level 7 and 8                      and students will be required to complete their assessments and examinations:​

§  Royal College of Veterinary Nursing programmes are currently expecting all years to continue with examinations. We are still in discussion with them and students will be updated by their Programme Leader as soon as we have confirmation from RCVS

§  Law Society- requires students in all years to complete assessments and examinations. One remaining assessment in criminal law all others complete.

§  Accountancy- requires students in all years to complete assessments and examinations. There are no outstanding assessments for these students to complete and these should be marked and returned to students as normal.

§  All programmes in the School of Health and Social Care- these students will be informed directly of requirements

Please note: for CIMPSA Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Activity we await further information and will update you accordingly.

*For these awarding bodies they require confirmation at a later date that all learning outcomes have been met. This may require students to be assessed once teaching has returned to normal but we will be cognisant of their workload if that is the case.

Examination Arrangements for the majority of SCQF level 9, 10 and 11 modules:

1. Examinations will take place at the start-time published in the examination timetable, and the University is planning for this to be coordinated centrally through an online portal. We will update you once this is ready
   

b. The examination papers will be made available online at the published start time and students will be given 7 days to complete them as open book assessments and to upload their answers. This inclusive approach provides flexibility for students working in different time-zones and also helps to alleviate risks with systems failure

c. Module leaders are currently being contacted to have the opportunity to review examinations already approved to ensure that they are appropriate for an open book assessment

d. Examinations will be marked as ‘open book’ assessments

e. Some modules across all SCQF levels have additional standards placed upon them set by Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies, these require modules to be assessed by time-limited online examinations. This approach can be offered for modules where applicable. The ones that we already know about are:

·         Law Society- requires students in all years to complete examinations, these will be conducted online and will be time-limited (2x normal duration) and assessed as open book examinations

·         Accountancy- requires students in all years to complete examinations. These will be conducted online and will be time-limited (2x normal duration) and assessed as open book

Programme leaders should be prepared for students to contact them if they are not sure whether their programmes are accredited.

Will summer  or autumn graduations be going ahead as planned this year?

No. We’re working on contingency plans to ensure all eligible students will be able to graduate now we've had to postpone these particular ceremonies to later on in the year.

We’re continuing to monitor the situation and will send out further information once we know more.

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