We have good systems and processes to ensure the academic quality of our courses, but if you are unhappy with any part of your course, please initially talk to someone in your school who is directly involved which should hopefully resolve your concern.
We do have formal processes which allow certain cases or decisions to be reviewed.
What is an academic appeal?
An academic appeal is when you ask the university to review a formal decision about your assessments, progression, or awards.
Which decisions can be appealed?
You can appeal the following decisions made by the university (these might be referred to as rights):
- Progression conditions: If the university requires you to take reassessments or meet certain conditions to move to the next stage of your course or research.
- Termination of study: If your current program is terminated without offering a lower award or the option to transfer to another course or research degree.
- Classification decisions: If you disagree with the classification decision (including class of honours) awarded.
- Progression reviews: If you met the progression requirements but couldn’t inform the university of serious circumstances affecting your study before the exam board’s decision. You must show compelling reasons, like evidenced medical incapacity, for not informing the university earlier.
- Qualification awards: If the university decides not to award your registered qualification and instead offers a lower or no qualification.
- Fitness to Practise: If you are on a professional course and disagree with a decision made by the university’s Fitness to Practise Committee.
- Extenuating circumstances: If you disagree with the outcome of an extenuating circumstances claim.
You can appeal more than one of these decisions at a time.
You cannot appeal the academic judgement of the exam board, including dissatisfaction with a decision. Appeals are not a way to challenge disappointing results.
What reasons can I use to appeal?
You can appeal based on specific circumstances, known as ‘grounds.’ You can choose more than one ground for your appeal. Here are the accepted grounds:
- Procedural irregularity: If parts of the documented assessment procedure were not followed.
- Prejudice or bias: If there is evidence of prejudice or bias, or if there are reasonable grounds to believe it occurred.
- Unreasonable decision: If a decision was made that was not reasonable. You need to provide a strong argument for this; simply disagreeing with the decision is not enough.
- New evidence: If your performance was affected by circumstances that were not known and could not have been known to the exam board at the time of their decision. You must explain why these circumstances couldn’t be reported earlier.
If you have a concern about teaching, supervision or anything to do with the delivery of your programme, this should be raised with your school as soon as possible. If you need to, you can raise a complaint about this, which would be addressed through the Student Complaints Code of Practice rather than considered as an academic appeal.
How can I submit an appeal?
Note: This guidance applies to decisions made at our UK campus. Different procedures apply to the University of Nottingham Ningbo China and the University of Nottingham Malaysia.
To submit an appeal, follow these steps:
- Complete the form: Fill out the form linked on our appeals webpage.
- Read the Code of Practice: Ensure you have read and understood our Academic Appeals Code of Practice.
- State the facts: Clearly state the facts of your case and provide relevant evidence.
- Submission deadline: Appeals must be submitted within 30 working days of the decision. Late submissions are unlikely to be accepted.
- Provide evidence: Include any evidence you have to support your appeal as well as evidence of what you are appealing, such as the letter or email you received notifying you of the decision.
You'll need to include these details:
- Basis for appeal: Choose the basis (or right) for your appeal from the provided list.
- Reasons for appeal: Specify the reasons (or grounds) for your appeal.
- Summary: Provide a summary (up to 1200 words) explaining your reasons for appealing, including a summary of what has happened. Remember that the reviewer will not have background knowledge of your circumstances. If you can, it's useful to provide a chronological timeline, including how you have sought advice or tried to resolve your issues informally before submitting an appeal.
- Desired outcome: Let us know your desired outcome.
- Submit the form: Email the completed form to the academic appeals inbox.
After submission of the appeals form, you'll receive an email acknowledgement from the Investigations and Resolution team.
- Clear evidence: Ensure any evidence you provide is clearly titled and ideally dated. We reserve the right to reject appeals with an excessive number of documents.
- Keep it clear and concise: Use clear, succinct responses and stay within the recommended word count. Timelines or bullet points can help structure your appeal. When referring to evidence, use the saved document name you have given it.
- Speak to the Students' Union: We strongly recommend you get some advice from the impartial Education Advisers in the Students’ Union prior to submitting your academic appeal.
What evidence can I submit to support my appeal?
We will require formal notification of the decision you are appealing – often this is an outcome letter or email confirming the decision. A Blue Castle screenshot will be accepted if you are appealing a classification decision. You can submit other evidence if it substantiates the grounds under which you are appealing. Evidence should be factual, not just opinions or assertions.
Evidence that is signed, dated from the relevant period (or refers to the circumstances that occurred from that time) and from a professional source can be helpful. Evidence should be provided in English and if that is not possible, a certified translation should be submitted. If you have a support plan and your appeal relates to certain aspects, then please provide full details to assist us in handling your appeal.
Types of evidence which might be relevant to support your appeal:
- Medical letters/GP records relating to your health
- Official documents from the Government or other bodies
- Emails from academics or support services
- Police reports
- Link to standards of evidence in the EC policy.
What is the appeal process?