Marks and Credit Transfer for Students on Study Abroad Placements
Marks and credit transfer for students on Study Abroad Placements at Educational Institutions
Where students participate in periods of study abroad at another educational institution which result in the award of marks and credit by the partner institution, the University undertakes to provide arrangements for the consistent transfer of credit and marks to Nottingham for the purpose of calculating final degrees. This will ensure that students on international exchanges are neither advantaged nor disadvantaged in relation to peers remaining in Nottingham.
This policy does not apply to work-based / employer placements. For guidance on these placements please see the Quality Manual Code of Practice for Placement Learning Programmes.
1. Setting up agreements
The ownership of an exchange scheme rests at School level. School Teaching Committees (or equivalent) should play a role in the development of links and the approval of the workload of individual students.
When developing exchange agreements Schools should follow the guidelines issued by the International Office.
The guidelines include a Quality Assurance Checklist to aid the School in setting up exchange agreements. It is recommended that the Checklist should be submitted to the International Office.
2. Credit equivalence
All Schools must define and document what, in their belief, is the amount of work to be undertaken at the Exchange institution which corresponds most closely to the number of credits required for that period of academic study at Nottingham. This should be done by obtaining information on the credit systems in place at partner institutions and, with advice from the International Office, defining a range which equates with a range of Nottingham credits.
3. Mark translation
Schools must have a documented procedure for translating a mark awarded by a partner institution into a mark to be used for the purposes of calculating a student's final degree classification. This procedure may be based on one or more combinations of the methods described below:
• Schools may agree standards of achievement in the form of assessed learning outcomes and relate these to marks on their Nottingham scale. These standards/ learning outcomes must be agreed with the partner institution and levels of achievement indicated by the partner for each student.
• As the Universities in question (particularly U21) have a similar quality of students to those at Nottingham, Schools may therefore base marks on information acquired on the percentage distribution of students among ranges at the partner institution and map those on to ranges for Nottingham students – e.g. the marks for the top 10% at Nottingham may be in the range of 71%-73% while at a partner institution it may be 74%-78%.
• Schools may request that all or a portion of a student's work is returned to Nottingham to be double marked and/or shown to the External Examiner.
4. Student learning agreements
Schools must ensure that each individual student undertaking an exchange has a Learning Agreement (see learning agreements at: http://workspace.nottingham.ac.uk/display/IOResources/Home
Students attending the same exchange institution should undertake a broadly equivalent workload to other Nottingham exchange students in the same subject area.
Students who are spending one semester at an exchange institution should normally take a minimum of 50 and a maximum of 70 credits worth of courses/modules at that institution.
Students should be informed prior to departure of the way in which credit and marks are to be transferred.
The student’s Learning Agreement should state the manner in which reassessment will be undertaken if a fail mark is received during a placement. The options are:
(a) The reassessment is set and marked by the institution at which the student is undertaking the placement (prior agreement will need to have been sought from the placement institution).
(b) The reassessment is set and marked by the student’s School.
(c) The student is required to enrol on a substitute module at the University of Nottingham in order to accrue the credits not gained during the placement. This may entail the student enrolling on extra credits during the next stage of the course in order to complete the previous stage. Alternatively, it may mean the student is unable to progress to the next stage until the requisite number of credits have been gained by taking the substitute module(s) as a part-time student.
5. Recording of credits and marks
The School should inform Academic Services Division (MarksProcessing@nottingham.ac.uk ) of the amount of credit to be taken by each individual student for the purposes of module registration and marks processing. This should be done by completing the Credit Transfer Form. ‘Credit Transfer' modules will be created in Saturn and assigned the appropriate amount of credit. The credit values of the modules should equate to Nottingham credit values (minimum of 10, and then multiples of 5).
Schools must arrive at a single mark for each unit of work (module equivalent) studied abroad. The mark(s) should be recorded against the credit equivalent module(s) taken at the partner institution.