The retention of students' assessed work

This page contains the University's regulations on the retention of students' assessed work. Its content is applicable to staff and students across all of the UK, China and Malaysia campuses and covers both students assessed work and materials that support the assessment process, e.g. assessment briefings, marks schemes, etc.

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1.0 Purpose

The University must retain appropriate evidence of students' assessed work together with appropriate supporting materials, i.e. assessment briefs, examination question papers, marking criteria, mark schemes, model answers, submission deadlines, etc for a specified period in order to meet academic, statutory and regulatory requirements and legal obligations.

The regulations and procedures for the retention and disposal of assessment material form part of a wider Document Retention Schedule, which is prepared in accordance with the University’s Record Management Policy.

2.0 Key Principles

These regulations relate to all assessment types both online and paper-based. Where assessment results in a physical artifact, Schools are not required to retain the physical object but must consider retaining photographic or video evidence of the students work.

Schools should maintain and use sample marked scripts in all subject areas to ensure maintenance of academic standards.

Schools in liaison with Learning Technologies must retain appropriate records of students' assessed work together with contextual documentation that informs the assessment process. The documents retained must allow for judgments on rigour of assessment to be made to draw reliable conclusions about the entirety of the provision in relation to the University’s compliance with the Office for Students conditions of registration B4 and B5. Retained documentation will also be used to support the External Examiner process and, where appropriate, provide information to support the complaint and appeal process.

Appropriate records must be retained for the periods as set out in the University’s records retention schedule and must facilitate judgement about the effective assessment and credibility of the awards conferred by the University.

All assessed work that is retained must be done so in accordance with the University’s records management policy (see Related Regulations, Policies and Procedures below for detail.

The disposal of student work must only be done on the authority of the relevant Department, and in compliance with the University’s Data Retention policy.

Where submitted work is coursework and this has been returned to the student for the purposes of providing feedback, Schools must ensure that either a copy has been retained within the School or that on request work can be returned to the School at a later date.

Any work retained must be kept until at least the end of the academic session following the session in which the assessment occurred. Where assessments are submitted electronically, Schools may wish to consult the Learning Technologies team to ascertain whether the chosen submission method fulfils the assessment and administrative requirements.

Past marks must be used to analyse trends in results in order to evaluate the maintenance and development of academic standards. If your School uses Campus for marks processing, comparative statistics can be produced from this system. Please contact Registry and Academic Affairs (Assessment Team) for further details.