24. Penalties

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For academic misconduct 

24.1. When recommending a penalty to an exam board, an appropriately constituted committee/panel will consider the offence and penalty independently of its potential impact on the student’s degree classification. Whether the penalty for offence in question should be reflected in the degree class to be awarded is the judgement of the board. In such cases, exam boards should take into account any effect on the degree classification that the penalty already has had. 

For the late submission of coursework 

24.2. Students must be made aware of the existence of penalties for not meeting submission deadlines by the relevant school or faculty. 

24.3. Coursework that is submitted after a deadline but within the late submission period should be subject to the following penalty, unless an extension has been agreed by the School, prior to the deadline, or late submission is justified by reason of illness or other validated exceptional circumstance (see section 20): 

For assessments in modular programmes on a 0-100 scale:  

  • the late submission period is four days (i.e. 4 x 24 hour periods) from the submission deadline 
  • the late submission of work will incur a fixed absolute penalty of 10 marks for each 24-hour period after the agreed submission deadline, not including public holidays in England or University closure days. 
  • if the work is not submitted by the end of the late submission period, the assessment will be considered to be a non-submission.  

For assessments in non-modular programmes (BDS, BVSc (including Accelerated Graduate Entry), MBChB) on a 0-100 scale:  

  • the late submission period is 24 hours from the submission deadline
  • a fixed absolute penalty of 10 marks is applied for work that is submitted up to 24 hours after the agreed submission deadline not including public holidays in England or University closure days; 
  • if the work is not submitted by the end of the late submission period, the assessment will be considered to be a non-submission. 

For assessments in modular or non-modular programmes that generate a grade but are returned on a pass/fail scale:  

  • the late submission period is four days (i.e. 4 x 24 hour periods) from the submission deadline
  • the late submission of work will incur a fixed absolute penalty as in (a) above to the grade that the student would have received on the marking scale used for that assessment. Where the application of the penalty causes the grade to fall below the ‘pass’ threshold, the assessment is awarded a ‘fail’ mark.
  • if the work is not submitted by the end of the late submission period, the assessment will be considered to be a non-submission.  

For assessments in modular or non-modular programmes that are competency-based and do not generate a mark: the late submission will incur a ‘fail’ mark. 

24.4. When applying a penalty for a late submission, a ‘day’ constitutes 24 hours from the submission deadline to the next day which is not a public holiday in England or University closure day (e.g. if a submission deadline is 15.00 on Monday, a ‘day’ constitutes the 24 hour period up to 15.00 on Tuesday). 

24.5. Penalties are applied in the form of a mark reduction from the mark the student would have achieved. 

24.6. For group coursework, it is the collective responsibility of the student group to ensure and confirm that the work is submitted before the deadline. Students involved in group work for assessment may also be required to individually provide evidence of their participation in and contribution to the work of the group. If group work is submitted late, the penalty applied to the marks of individual student(s) may be retracted where there is evidence that they have satisfactorily contributed to the group work in time for the work to be submitted by the deadline, as determined by the Unit Director of other member of academic staff. 

For exceeding the size limit in summative assessment 

24.7. Faculties’ policies for defining the size limit of summative assessment, by assessment type, and any penalty for exceeding the defined limit, for its taught programmes, should be in accordance with the following. 

24.8. Whether specific forms of assessment are subject to a size limit, and if so:  

  • whether the size limit is defined by reference to the number of pages (with font size, line spacing, margin size, and page orientation requirements), by a word / character limit or other defined limit
  • the penalty where the defined limit is exceeded.  

24.9. Students must be informed, at or before the date of issue of the assessment, the size limit (including how the size limit is defined) and the penalty for exceeding the limit, if any, as reflected in the approved unit specification.  

24.10. The policy of the faculty that owns the unit will apply. It is important for students whose home programme is based in a different faculty are made fully aware that the policy applied in the submission of assessment for a unit may be different than the policy of their home faculty.  

24.11. It is the responsibility of the student to ensure that the work complies with the defined size limit prior to submission and to certify the size (word or page length or other defined limit) on the front cover sheet when submitting the work. 

24.12. The student in question must be informed of the decision to apply the penalty for exceeding the defined size limit.