The University of Sheffield
New undergraduates

AssessmentKeyboards

The University has certain expectations for its graduates, specifically that they are:

The assessment process is designed to encourage you to develop these attributes, and to demonstrate that you have done so, as well as to ensure that you have acquired the knowledge and skills necessary to tackle the next stage of your degree programme successfully. This is why you will be faced with a diverse range of assessment methods, from traditional examinations through homework and problem sets to IT tasks, literature searches, essays and oral presentations. While the end-of-semester examination is still a key part of the assessment process, you will also complete a large amount of assessed work during the course of the semester.

Submission of assessed work

All assessed work, excluding tutorial work, must be put into a drop box located outside the Hicks Student Support Office (G12), Further guidance will be given during Intro Week. Note that it is University policy to mark such work anonymously where possible, so your assessed work should be attached to a downloaded cover sheet, information regarding the coversheet will be sent to you at the start of term.

Failure to hand in work without extenuating circumstances and the submission of a special circumstances form will result in a reduced mark. Work will be accepted after the deadline set for its completion, but the standard departmental policy for late submission of assessed coursework is a deduction of 5% of the total mark for each working day after the submission date. Work submitted more than five working days* late will receive a mark of zero.

Some assessed work does not qualify for the reduced mark scheme. A mark of zero will be awarded to such work submitted late. In cases where such non-standard late submission policies apply, the lecturer or course administrator should have informed you of the alternative policy. You should consult the lecturer or course administrator if you are unsure of the rules on late submission for a particular exercise.

It is very important that you attempt and submit all items of assessed work. In addition to contributing to your final module mark this work also provides important practice in using the material you will meet throughout the course. Failure to complete a significant fraction of the assessed work will therefore most likely affect your exam performance as well as directly reducing your module mark. It is not possible to re-sit the vast majority of the assessed work so if you have to re-sit a module in August your original mark for the assessed work will be used.

Note that late submission for good reason (e.g. illness) will not be penalised. However, the University’s Examination Conventions state that "It is the responsibility of students to notify their tutors and supervisors, or other appropriate departmental representatives, at the earliest opportunity if there are any extenuating circumstances that might have a bearing on their examination performance." You should not expect a sympathetic hearing if you only claim extenuating circumstances after you have missed a deadline or failed an exam! It is also essential that you present documentary evidence of the problem, again as early as possible. The greater the weight of the assessed work, the more important it is to present independent evidence of the problem.

* "Working days" include working days within standard vacation times. For example, if a submission date falls on the last day before the start of the Easter vacation, penalties would start to be applied from the following working day and not from the first day following the vacation. However, days on which the University is closed, e.g. Bank Holidays, do not count as working days.