University complaints

[mk45]

My son recently completed a dissertation with a well known Midlands university but got a lower mark than expected. My son took his dissertation without any support or teaching from the course leader. The course leader has emailed my son to confirm he had no contact with my son. He said lockdown was hard for students and staff. This person was also his dissertation supervisor and he did not mark the draft dissertation so my son took the whole two module course without being taught. He had informed them he could not access course materials early on. He raised it three times throughout the course but staff did not follow their own complaints procedure and now the course is finished they want him to put it on a step 1 form. Is this usual for students trying to complete degrees and dissertations during lockdown? I know my son can complete the internal complaints procedure but has anyone experienced this process because his close friend, another student from the same university, recently committed suicide and it might be better to leave it rather than deal with a stressful complaints procedure that won't achieve much. Thanks

@Datingandnoideahowto

He was a third year student. Not a first year. Didn’t he have a WhatsApp group or similar he could have asked other students about any issues in?

I believe he had contact with two students who took this option and I believe they had the same issues but got better marks. I don't know if they had the same supervisor. I don't know if they had their drafts marked.

@Chemenger

I think the basis of your complaint is that his previous attempts at raising the issues were not resolved. That is what you should concentrate on. I agree with much of what PPs have said, the story of the dissertation and its supervision does not add up. However not responding to complaints is grounds for a further complaint, even if the grounds of those initial complaints are weak. The 190 hours referred to in your last post must be student hours, no course has 190 contact hours. Each of our modules has a notional 100 hours, a taught module has about 28 contact hours, the rest is personal study time. Our dissertations have an expectation of about 10 hours contact per student with the supervisor plus a couple of introductory lectures. I know of other programmes, in humanities, where the expected contact is much lower and the dissertation is very much seen as an independent piece of work.

Thank you for the advice. I'm still wondering if internal university complaints are worth pursuing. It seems generally that it will not achieve anything.

I’m not familiar with English universities but in Scotland I think you have to go through the internal complaints system before you can raise it with the external body.

I worked in university complaints up until last year.

I think you need to be very sure what you are looking to gain here.

It sounds like your son has passed - what was his mark? Was he borderline between classifications. As the degree has been passed a complaint could well be upheld but it will make no difference to the outcome of the classification. An appeal on the other hand could, but this would be a different procedure

When you say he got a lower mark than expected, what do you mean by that? Was this purely your son's expectations or was this something mentioned to him? Compared to other modules, how much lower was the dissertation mark? It's not unusual for students to preform lower in a dissertation as it is quite a different bit of work

There is no way your ds wouldn't be aware that he had a supervisor. Also I think you need to be clear on what you mean by couldn't access material. From a complaint point of view there will be a lot of things that will be your ds's responsibility and accessing internet will be one of them

On the face of it, his complaint relates to 'failure to deliver a service'. However, you/he need to work out where the root of this failure lies.

There seem to be two issues. One is his inability to access some kind of teaching related to his dissertation. Here the question is whether the root cause of this is something your son should have taken responsibility for or whether the department should have. From what you have said, it appears that it is in fact something your son should have been responsible for, as he is responsible for ensuring he has appropriate equipment to access the course. The department could have helped, but it does not constitute a failure to deliver a service that they did not.

The second issue is his lack of dissertation supervision. Here we need to understand how that arose. If there was an expectation that your son would access the relevant information (such as the information that he should have a supervisor which it is difficult to believe he was unable to find anywhere in any course material), follow a process for being allocated a supervisor and make contact with said supervisor, and your son did not do these things, then this is not failure to deliver a service because the service was available but your son did not avail himself of it.

So here we need to understand whether your son followed the correct processes for being assigned a supervisor and trying to arrange supervision and whether he submitted his draft to be read at the appropriate time (and whether supervisors will read a full dissertation draft - we don't, we will only read and comment on sections of the dissertation and only at a specific point early in the process due to this being an independent piece of work, so sending a full draft at an inappropriate time is a pointless exercise and whether or not his supervisor was on holiday when he sent it is irrelevant). If he did not access information that was available to him and follow the correct processes, then again the department could have been more helpful, but it does not constitute a failure on their part that they were not.

So you need to consider these things:

1. What is the specific failure your son wants to highlight? What has the department done that contravenes university regulations? Keep in mind that the complaints procedure is a technical exercise, it relates to compliance with policies, regulations and rules on the part of both the department and the student.
2. What outcome does he want to achieve? Does the university have a policy relating to delivery of service during the pandemic and whether or not this can be used to apply for an adjustment of his marks? If it doesn't, then what is the outcome he wants?

I think the key learning from this has to be independence. For whatever the university may or may not have done wrong, he categorically has not taken sufficient responsibility in pursuing a resolution. If he didn’t know he should have done, that in itself shows a lack of critical thinking, the point of the module is not having to be spoon fed. There’s no question from the answers you’ve given that he has to accept some responsibility, even if that is just for not shouting loudly enough or not recognising when he needed to ask for help.

If he takes any lessons away from his degree, this will be the most valuable one and will stand him in far greater stead in later life than a higher grade.

I think he will be grateful for the lesson in the end, if he accepts it and is honest with himself, it could be the making of him if he avoids bigger mistakes in the future.

@Phphion

On the face of it, his complaint relates to 'failure to deliver a service'. However, you/he need to work out where the root of this failure lies.

There seem to be two issues. One is his inability to access some kind of teaching related to his dissertation. Here the question is whether the root cause of this is something your son should have taken responsibility for or whether the department should have. From what you have said, it appears that it is in fact something your son should have been responsible for, as he is responsible for ensuring he has appropriate equipment to access the course. The department could have helped, but it does not constitute a failure to deliver a service that they did not.

The second issue is his lack of dissertation supervision. Here we need to understand how that arose. If there was an expectation that your son would access the relevant information (such as the information that he should have a supervisor which it is difficult to believe he was unable to find anywhere in any course material), follow a process for being allocated a supervisor and make contact with said supervisor, and your son did not do these things, then this is not failure to deliver a service because the service was available but your son did not avail himself of it.

So here we need to understand whether your son followed the correct processes for being assigned a supervisor and trying to arrange supervision and whether he submitted his draft to be read at the appropriate time (and whether supervisors will read a full dissertation draft - we don't, we will only read and comment on sections of the dissertation and only at a specific point early in the process due to this being an independent piece of work, so sending a full draft at an inappropriate time is a pointless exercise and whether or not his supervisor was on holiday when he sent it is irrelevant). If he did not access information that was available to him and follow the correct processes, then again the department could have been more helpful, but it does not constitute a failure on their part that they were not.

So you need to consider these things:

1. What is the specific failure your son wants to highlight? What has the department done that contravenes university regulations? Keep in mind that the complaints procedure is a technical exercise, it relates to compliance with policies, regulations and rules on the part of both the department and the student.
2. What outcome does he want to achieve? Does the university have a policy relating to delivery of service during the pandemic and whether or not this can be used to apply for an adjustment of his marks? If it doesn't, then what is the outcome he wants?

Great advice. Thank you.

And by the way - that framing needs to come with the very clear message: we all make mistakes. The mistakes themselves matter much less than the lessons we learn from them.

I’m not absolving the university of blame here, but I am saying that he has to acknowledge his part. Not least because it will make any complaint to the university far more tangible and explicit.

@HoppingHamster

I think the key learning from this has to be independence. For whatever the university may or may not have done wrong, he categorically has not taken sufficient responsibility in pursuing a resolution. If he didn’t know he should have done, that in itself shows a lack of critical thinking, the point of the module is not having to be spoon fed. There’s no question from the answers you’ve given that he has to accept some responsibility, even if that is just for not shouting loudly enough or not recognising when he needed to ask for help.

If he takes any lessons away from his degree, this will be the most valuable one and will stand him in far greater stead in later life than a higher grade.

I think he will be grateful for the lesson in the end, if he accepts it and is honest with himself, it could be the making of him if he avoids bigger mistakes in the future.

I do agree with your comments. It is frustrating that this issue would not have happened if we had not been in lockdown.

@HoppingHamster

And by the way - that framing needs to come with the very clear message: we all make mistakes. The mistakes themselves matter much less than the lessons we learn from them.

I’m not absolving the university of blame here, but I am saying that he has to acknowledge his part. Not least because it will make any complaint to the university far more tangible and explicit.

Thank you

Also lessons:

• Don’t just accept it when things go wrong (not be able to access lectures)
• If it doesn’t feel right it probably isn’t
• People, even the most important ones, are only human and need reminding of things sometimes (especially lecturers!)
• Don’t be afraid to challenge authority if you have good reason
• Never feel like you can’t ask for help and don’t leave it to late to ask

Things he did well: persevering with the resources he had available to him

I would like to thank everyone for their comments. It was really useful to see other people's perspectives.

That’s the thing for me too (and why I was asking all the questions). You need to separate out stuff that was his responsibility from stuff that was the university’s responsibility.

It would help if you went through the questions that have been raised here with him and then you will be able to frame your complaint in a more focused way.

There’s no point, as an example, complaining that his internet didn’t let him access the lectures. That’s on him. He should’ve come home if that was an issue. But if the information wasn’t uploaded then that’s a legitimate complaint, but the university will ask why he didn’t complain at the time. (Maybe he did but not loudly enough for example)

He was an undergraduate and this was his only experience of doing a dissertation.
Plus everything on his course had to be changed because of lockdown.

If there was an institutional problem it would have affected the entire cohort. Everyone has been in lockdown and learning remotely. The fact that your ds seems to have been the only one affected, and your unclear, one sentence responses, suggest a ds rather than uni problem.

Don't normally you agree a topic with someone before starting the dissertation? Did that not happen?

@Datingandnoideahowto

How didn’t he have friends? He’s final year if he’s doing a dissertation so how come he didn’t have mates on his course from the last 2 years (or 3) that he could chat to about the dissertation?

He has friends but most didn't do the creative writing dissertation so weren't on this course.

But he must have submitted a proposal. He must have. Especially for a creative writing dissertation.

@burnoutbabe

Don't normally you agree a topic with someone before starting the dissertation? Did that not happen?

You absolutely do. If you didn't, every student would be in the dark.

i mean the fact he got a fairly okay mark is astounding with zero input, he could have answered completly too wide or narrow a question, so there is that to appreciate.

I believe he submitted a synopsis, a draft and the final dissertation. The final dissertation was marked. My son did not know the synopsis was worth 10%. He admitted he would have done more work if he had known it was 10%. His friend had died at this time and he told me the lecturer had said this piece of work was not marked. This was before the lockdown.

@titchy

He was an undergraduate and this was his only experience of doing a dissertation. Plus everything on his course had to be changed because of lockdown.

If there was an institutional problem it would have affected the entire cohort. Everyone has been in lockdown and learning remotely. The fact that your ds seems to have been the only one affected, and your unclear, one sentence responses, suggest a ds rather than uni problem.

I have no way of knowing if other students were affected. I imagine most students wouldn't complain if they received a good mark even if their course was not good.

What lockdown are you talking about? I’m sorry I’m really confused.

"He sent it to the course tutor. The course tutor confirmed after the course had finished he was the supervisor. He didn't provide any feedback until he marked the dissertation."

I’m really trying to understand the timeline here.

I assume the dissertation module started in September? And the lockdown you refer to is when students on non-practical courses were told by the government not to return in January?

But it sounds like your son did return, as you say he was not at home?

When was the synopsis due? It sounds like there was contact with the lecturer at that stage? And when was the dissertation due?

As others have mentioned it’s unusual to have a full draft marked (though my knowledge isn’t in creative writing).

I’m really trying to piece this all together to try and understand. Did your son have any mitigating circumstances submitted with regards to dealing with his friend’s death?

@EduCated

I’m really trying to understand the timeline here.

I assume the dissertation module started in September? And the lockdown you refer to is when students on non-practical courses were told by the government not to return in January?

But it sounds like your son did return, as you say he was not at home?

When was the synopsis due? It sounds like there was contact with the lecturer at that stage? And when was the dissertation due?

As others have mentioned it’s unusual to have a full draft marked (though my knowledge isn’t in creative writing).

I’m really trying to piece this all together to try and understand. Did your son have any mitigating circumstances submitted with regards to dealing with his friend’s death?

Yes, the dissertation started around September. My son was already in his university accommodation in December/January when the new lockdown began so he couldn't return home. The synopsis was due before the lockdown in December. The dissertation was due in May. My son had a two week extension agreed due to extenuating circumstances.