University marking

[QuestionableMouse]

Just had an email from a lecturer saying the assignment we were due to get back this week isn't going to be available until the end of next week. That means it has been seven weeks since we handed it in. I know Christmas has just ended but aibu to think seven weeks is too long to wait for a big standard (literature) assignment to be marked? My sister is at a different uni and they get theirs back much more quickly.

Literature marking takes ages. How many students in the group?

I just had to check my uni emails in case they told us the same! They haven’t.

Ours takes 20 working days and is always been on time so far.

Could Christmas and new year be the issue?

We have now waited 3 months for our results and feedback from one essay. It's also literature. We received an email saying it won't be with us until mid-January which will be after the exam that the feedback was supposed to prepare us for.

We've had a variety of excuses so far including 1st marker absence, 2nd marker leaving, essays being misplaced.

I get how annoying it is and it's frustrating that nothing can be done about it.

That is a long time. We get 3 weeks to mark and return assignments.

Your Uni should have a policy on the time frame for the return of marked work. At mine, the expectation is 20 working days (i.e. excludes bank holidays) for most submissions (not dissertations). There is always a caveat in the policy, though, that return of work can be delayed due to unforeseen circumstances e.g. staff sickness. It would be unusual for work to be scheduled for return during the holidays - was it definitely due back this week?

What is your university’s policy and what reason have they given for the delay? Their policy will likely say that if they go over X number of days then students must be informed, which they have done

20 working days is a common turnaround time (usually in negotiation with the lecturers’ and students’ unions), but this is usually extremely tight and stressful to meet frankly with first marking, (sometimes) second marking, internal and external moderation etc. And it is still often the provisional marks rather than the ratified ones.

Taking Christmas into account, it’s probably more like 5-6 working weeks? Which is long and I understand frustrating but could be accounted for by markers being ill or external examiners not available just at the wrong moment

I completely get that this is frustrating but you should be kept fully informed and better that it is done properly and not rushed

The department should have a marking policy. It’s usually in the handbook and will give details of how long students should expect to wait to get feedback on essays/assignments. When I worked in academia, we were expected to have marked and given written feedback on essays within 2 weeks. It would be longer for bigger projects like dissertations obviously.

Take out the 3 weeks over xmas/New Year, add in that a percentage of the assignments may have had to be second-marked or sent to an external marker; possibly large cohort of students, onerous admin tasks, publication deadlines, etc etc, it may well take up to 7 weeks. I can see that happening. Does it negatively impact on you (job interviews?)

I wonder if the uni have a policy on it? It's a very long time to wait!

At my institution, days the university is closed don't count in the turnaround, and nor do things like sick days. If it's a large class with multiple markers, it can take an age to sort, and if just one of those has been ill etc, it throws everything back.

Personally, I think we should fuck the feedback off, and just stick a mark on, like they did in the 90s. That's the only bit most students pay attention to anyway, and it would take minutes per script, instead of over an hour (3000 words with annotated script as well as written feedback)

Would you rather have it back quickly, or receive something useful?

Oh, and your lecturer has emailed you on the morning of New Year's Day, which is a Bank Holiday, even if your university isn't closed atm They are keeping you informed at least, and clearly, from the above, aren't swinging the lead.

Twenty days is what they say is standard. It was due back tomorrow. It is affecting me. I'm nervous about it because it's the first lit assignment I've done and I'd like to see how I've done. Also it's due back just before we get another set of assignments so if I've not done well and need to resubmit it, the timing is tricky.

Hefzi

I am an English lit academic and we also have 20 working days to return work. But that is working days, ie not when the University is closed. So if you are just counting off 20 weekdays to establish when you think work should be returned you may be wrong.

However if you were told x date in writing and they are now not sticking to it, that is not great. Publication deadlines etc are irrelevant. We all have them and we manage teaching commitments around them. Staff illness is not predictable but as a HoD I would be organising marking cover if possible rather than delaying your feedback till after the exam.

We work to three weeks of term, approximately.

You have been told that it will be slightly late, and I would kid assume that means (one of) your marker(s) may have been sick over Christmas, and has not completed the job. The fact that they are emailing you on a non-work day suggests that they have tried to get it done, and realise it’s kot possible to do a good job and be on time.

Lecturers are people who get ill, and it’s impossible to work to tight deadlines abd do a good job if you are unwell. I think you need to be reasonable about this.

I get that you are anxious, but consider what other options there might be for delayed resubmission if that’s something you will need to do - there is always room for sensible and adult negotiation in these circumstances.

Ours used to be 15 working days.
However, now as a teacher, please remember you don’t know your lecturers life. There are 1000 valid reasons that they havent managed to mark your essay yet (including that Christmas is their holiday, they are not paid for it, and most of them are on awful 0 hour contracts anyway and have to take 2nd jobs but the exploitation of academics is a whole other thread..... ) something may have happened. Please have some empathy - they’re only human, and an extra week will have no baring on your outcome.

My uni has a set policy of informing you when you can expect to receive marks. It has been 3 weeks after submission for all my literature, history and Indigenous Studies assignments and essays. Any longer and the lecturer would inform us especially with any emergency. If I had no joy with my lecturer there are complaints procedures to follow.

I'm not bitching or anything just wondering if seven weeks is anything like standard.

I've just done a post grad and all results got delayed and delayed to the point where we couldn't inform our next assignment based on having no result off first one.That's the problem with institutions marking their own work (which I think is wrong anyway) they just do what they feel like.

7 weeks is not standard, but given Christmas closures it doesn’t sound like it will have been 7 working weeks anyway?

Jassmells in my institution that situation would have been referred to the dean responsible - it’s not acceptable

I'm going to have two lit assignments in for making at the same time. I was hoping for the first one back before the second one was due so I could get a feel for the marking.

I work in uni admin and we have a three week marking turnaround. We wouldn't expect marking to be done over the two week Christmas break, which would extend the deadline but seven weeks wouldn't be deemed acceptable where I work.