Academic Policy & Governance

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1.  Incomplete Assessment resulting from Extenuating Circumstances (formerly Good Cause)

The former ‘Good Cause’ process in Regulation 16 (the Code of Assessment, §16.45 - §16.53) has undergone substantive procedural amendments which have been designed to better support students, streamline processes, and increase accountability to Senate while maintaining academic standards. Implementation of the revised processes will take place during the course of session 2025-26. Separate communications will be issued containing more detail on the changes.

In the meantime please note the immediate change in terminology from 'Good Cause' to 'Extenuating Circumstances' to reflect sector-standard terminology and improve clarity for staff and students.

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2.  Honours: Progress and Award Decisions where Extenuating Circumstances have been accepted

Traditionally, students have been required to complete an Honours year in one academic session. The relevant regulations have now been reviewed by Academic Standards Committee, resulting in the introduction of greater flexibility in the requirements where, due to Extenuating Circumstances, assessment is incomplete by the end of the session.

Existing progress regulations were outdated as they had been written in the context of assessments being heavily concentrated at the end of an academic session. These have been revised (see §16.52(e) for the full regulation):

Where assessment has been impacted by Extenuating Circumstances, at the end of Junior Honours or at the end of years 3 or 4 of an integrated Masters programme:

• Students who have completed less than 75% of that year’s assessment will be required to repeat the year.
• Students who have completed 75% of the year’s assessment but have incomplete assessment on a course or courses carrying more than 20 credits will be required to remedy the incomplete assessment before progressing.
• Students who have completed more than 75% of the year’s assessment, with incomplete assessment on courses carrying 20 credits or less, may progress but will be expected to remedy the incomplete assessment during the next year alongside their other work.

During session 2024-25 all Schools were asked to ensure that Summer assessment opportunities are made available to Honours students who have incomplete assessment through Extenuating Circumstances. This should minimise the number of students unable to meet the revised progress requirements. It is noted in the regulations that, where appropriate, programme teams may specify a higher progress threshold than 75% completion of assessment. Also, College Deans have discretion to approve progress where a stated threshold is not met.

At the end of the final year of an honours programme (§16.52(f)):

• An award will be made where students have completed 75% of the overall programme assessment, i.e. 25% or less of the assessment is incomplete due to Extenuating Circumstances – this is unchanged from previous regulations.
• Where less than 75% of the assessment is complete, students will be required to complete - in the following academic session - all assessment that was missed through Extenuating Circumstances.
• Where the independent work (dissertation/project) has, due to Extenuating Circumstances, not been submitted, this must be submitted by the end of semester 1 of the following session.
• Where less than 75% of the assessment has been completed and there is no prospect of the student returning to study, the Board of Examiners may consider recommending the award of an unclassified honours degree – this is unchanged from previous regulations.

Where students are required to remedy incomplete assessment:

• Assessment may be completed with attendance or on an assessment-only basis.
• A repeat of a full year or of a single semester may be offered, taking account of how a student’s overall learning and/or assessment has been impacted.
• Assessment must be in the same format as that offered at the first opportunity with the following exception: where it is impossible for the student in an assessment-only year to take the assessment in the same format, an alternative format may be offered where the Head of School confirms that this allows demonstration of the same ILOs and neither advantages nor disadvantages the student.

Advising Teams will have an important role in assessing the appropriate arrangements for students.

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3.  Limiting the Percentage of Components and Sub-components of Assessment that are not Reassessable to 25% by Weight of a Course’s Summative Assessment

For all assessments other than those contributing to an Honours degree classification, the normal expectation is that a reassessment opportunity should always be available.

The Code of Assessment allows that, in exceptional circumstances (and where this has been approved by the Head of School), some of the assessment for a course may be deemed not to be re-assessable – i.e. no reassessment opportunity will be available. As advised in last session’s Key Changes document, with effect from session 2025-26, this exception can apply to no more than 25% by weight of a course’s summative assessment and §16.9 has now been adjusted accordingly.

This change addresses potentially unfair assessment practice, particularly where students miss an assessment opportunity due to illness resulting in a successful application for Extenuating Circumstances.

It is recognised that there might be exceptional circumstances where it will be impossible to limit such cases to 25% of a course’s assessment, in which case permission for deviating from the regulation will need to be sought from the Clerk of Senate (please contact: apg-academic-regulations@glasgow.ac.uk).

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4.  Assessment (other than examinations): Penalties for late submission

It has been clarified in §16.26 (b) that for work submitted more than five working days after the deadline:

i)  where feedback on the work has not yet been provided to the student class, Grade H should be awarded;

ii)  where feedback has already been provided to the student class, the work will be counted as a non-submission.

This is the default position but course teams may vary this where appropriate.

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5.  Online Exam Submissions and Late Penalties

A number of different formats of online exams are in use and submission arrangements also vary. The regulations now clarify two points for exams where different parts of the exam are submitted separately, §16.28(d):

• Where different parts of an exam are submitted separately, and any are late, a penalty should only be applied to the part(s) submitted late and not to the full exam.
• If any part of such an exam is submitted by the end of the scheduled exam time (or by the end of any available late submission window) the exam as a whole will be treated as having been submitted.

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6.  Management of the Assessment Scheme

There has been some updating of the roles and responsibilities of Heads of Schools and Assessment Officers, with a greater emphasis on the need for Schools to provide, and for examiners to participate in, training and updates on policy and practice. (§16.57 - §16.62).

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7.  Posthumous Awards

The former practice had been that any posthumous award would only recognise the study and assessment that the student had completed. Many other institutions award posthumously in cases where the student had not completed the programme of study, if there was strong evidence that they would otherwise have satisfied the requirements for the award. The newly agreed posthumous award regulations set out in §16.81 will apply from session 2025-26 and bring the University into alignment with the sector.

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8.  Review of Grades

With effect from session 2025-26, several new or amended course grades will come into usage: 

• The ‘MV’ grade has been re-named as ‘EC’ to tie it more closely with the nomenclature of ’Extenuating Circumstances’ (what was previously referred to as Good Cause).
• The ‘7’ code (used to indicate a deferred result) has been re-named as ‘DFR’.
• A new grade ‘ECW’ will be available for any course where the requirements for the award of credit have not yet been satisfied (assessment not submitted, without Extenuating Circumstances) and, in addition, some assessment is missing owing to Extenuating Circumstances. Use of the ECW code signals to the Board of Examiners at a high level that there is a complex set of underlying missing assessment which needs to be considered carefully. 
• A new set of course grades will be available on programmes whose students must achieve particular grades on assessment components within courses. (This affects only a small number of programmes and is generally associated with requirements set by external accrediting bodies). Where the overall course grade hides the fact that any component requirements have not been met, an ‘X’ will be prefixed to the course grade.

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Following concerns raised regarding a lack of transparency in the operation of some Progress Committees, Section 11 of the Generic Undergraduate Regulations is amended for 2025-26:

• To clarify that students must routinely be provided with the full details of which aspects of the progress requirements they have not met [i.e. which courses/grades and the relevant regulation(s)].
• To include the requirement that all Colleges, Schools and/or Programmes must publish details of the process and constitution of the Progress Committee and how students can appeal against a Progress Committee outcome.

While these amendments were not formally incorporated into the University Regulations until session 2025-26, Schools have been strongly encouraged to align with the principles of these amendments for Progress Committees operating in summer 2025.

In order to improve the efficiency of the appeals handling process and following consultation with the SRC Advice Centre, a number of minor changes have been agreed to both the College and Senate Codes, including clarification of the process for approving witnesses requested by students to attend hearings.

As noted above during session 2025-26, the University will transition to a new process for managing Extenuating Circumstances claims. This change will have implications for the management of academic appeals, and further information on this will follow.

Queries in relation to the Code of Procedure for Appeals may be directed to senate-appeals@glasgow.ac.uk.

Several amendments have been made to the Plagiarism & Academic Integrity Code for session 2025-26, most of which reflect minor operational changes. More substantive changes include:

• The Plagiarism Statement has been renamed as the Plagiarism & Academic Integrity Code;
• Substantial revisions have been made to reflect the changing academic misconduct landscape and expand on the definitions of plagiarism to include ghost writing, contract cheating, and misuse of AI;
• A new section has been added outlining further investigation procedures at School level.

Senate has approved several changes to the Code of Student Conduct.  The following substantive changes are highlighted:

• The Appeals Procedure has been separated into academic and non-academic:
• A Student Conduct Appeal Form has been introduced.
• The process for appeals against academic conduct decisions remain largely the same, with minor changes to wording.
• The process for appeals against non-academic conduct decisions has been revised to:
• Include an Intention of Appeal period.
• Extend the period for submitting an appeal from 10 working days to 20 working days if an Intention of Appeal is submitted.
• Change in Roles noted at Annex A:
• Addition of the Chief Operating Officer and their role,
• Reference to the Safeguarding Manager is amended to Student Health, Wellbeing & Inclusion.

Queries in relation to the Plagiarism & Academic Integrity Code and the Code of Student Conduct may be directed to student-conduct@glasgow.ac.uk.

The former 'Fitness to Study' procedure (Regulation 34) has been revised to 'Support to Study', emphasising wellbeing and early intervention. Whilst maintaining necessary procedural safeguards, the new approach prioritises supportive language and proactive assistance planning. The procedure retains essential elements such as the Stage 2 'Fitness to Study Panel' and includes 'Interruption of Studies' provisions.

Queries in relation to the Procedure may be directed to supporttostudy@glasgow.ac.uk.

The new Code represents a significant revision of the previous Expected Behaviour Policy to allow more systematic implementation and ownership across all areas of the University and to provide more focus on expected behaviours, rather than unacceptable behaviours. It reflects terminology being used more widely across the Scottish HE Sector which is considered a more positive approach.

Queries in relation to the Code may be directed to student-conduct@glasgow.ac.uk or complaints@glasgow.ac.uk.