Academic Appeals

The Policy

If you are unhappy with a decision made by the Unit Assessment Board, Board of Examiners, or an Extenuating Circumstances Officer, you may be able to appeal. An appeal needs to be submitted within 10 working days of receiving a grade or decision.

There are two possible reasons why an appeal might be made. These are:

A - The University or End Point Assessment Organisation has made an administrative error or not followed its own procedures (which you can evidence) when arriving at the decision being appealed, or

B - You were prevented from completing a process/procedure for reasons related to your personal circumstances that you were unable to disclose, for a sound and acceptable reason related to the circumstances themselves, before the deadline for making an appeal expired.

As part of the appeals process, you will need to submit a statement outlining why you are submitting an appeal.

Your statement should include:

• Name, student number, address, email, course, year of study, date
• Grounds you are appealing under (will depend on your circumstances and the appeal stage you are on)
• Factually explain circumstances
• Preferred outcome
• Evidence

The Process

There are three stages in the appeal process.

Stage 1 - Early Resolution Opportunity:

You should have received official communication from the University outlining the decision you are unhappy with. You have 10 working days from receiving this to submit your appeal.

Once you have identified the grounds of your appeal, you will need to send a statement outlining your circumstances to the staff listed in the official communication. If they find your appeal to be valid, steps should be taken to correct any errors. If the appeal is not found to be valid, you will be advised of this in writing, and you will have a further 10 days to submit a Stage 2 appeal.

Stage 2 - Formal Appeal:

To submit a Stage 2 appeal, you must complete and submit this Appeal form to the DSAA for consideration.

Your appeal will then be processed in line with one of the following processes:

• Your appeal may be referred to another University department for consideration under a different process. You will be contacted to explain this decision and have a chance to discuss this.
• Your appeal may be rejected because it does not meet the correct criteria. You will be contacted to explain this situation and will be offered a chance to discuss this. You are then able to move to Stage 3 of the process if you are still unhappy with the outcome.
• Your appeal may be accepted for formal consideration and assigned to a senior member of staff. An appeal against a decision of the criminal convictions panel or in relation to student status will be heard in DSAA. All other appeals will go to staff within your faculty. The formal appeals process for End Point Assessment will be introduced, and an independent quality assurer will review your appeal and communicate their decision in writing.

You will be informed of the process to be followed within 5 working days of submitting your appeal.

Stage 3 - Review:

If you are unhappy with a decision made, you have a further 10 working days to request a review from the Academic Registrar.

A review request must be submitted, and the Academic Registrar, or a delegated staff member, will then consider all requests to review an appeal decision. They will check that procedures were followed properly and determine whether the outcome provided was reasonable.

Appropriate grounds for requesting a review of a decision will be:

• The fact that you do not believe the appeal procedure was followed correctly
• The fact that the investigation was not completed within the correct time period
• You have new evidence which you were unable, for valid reasons, to provide earlier in the process
• You do not believe that the decision reached was reasonable in all circumstances

You will receive an outcome within 15 working days from the Academic Registrar. Your appeal will either be accepted and next steps will be stated, or the review will be rejected and a Completion of Procedures letter will be issued.

If you are not happy with the final outcome, you can choose to contact The Office of Independent Adjudicators, and they will investigate whether the process has been followed correctly.

Or, you can submit a University Complaint - please see our guidance on our complaints page.