Marking and Assessment boycott at unis

[Bigfatsquirrel]

Poor kids. Now their work isn't to be marked and assessed. What does this mean for finalists. Dissertations going unread?? £9250 plus living costs for what ? Covid and strikes have devastated the last 4 years of Uni attendance.

Marking strike was announced the day DD's dissertation had to be in. She's finalising her last two essays and now . I think some might use algorithms, others might delay.

Not to get a true grade after four years at uni, lack of face to face lectures and support with covid, all that hard work, let alone the student debt and what parents have paid to support DC, just isn't acceptable. This news certainlyb isn't what students want either when they're trying to concentrate and to the best for their final result.

It's absolutely rubbish. Dd3 has seen what dd2 has gone through at uni and has absolutely no desire to waste money on it so she's not going to bother.

Spoken to DD about this today. Yes, everything is being landed on them just as they're under pressure to submit their disseration, final essays. Doesn't affect her, but she told me some students were due to do their foreign oral exam today, some got to do it, others didn't due to lack of professors - how are they going to be fairly assessed?

DD thinks her dissertation and current work are stronger than previous, so she desperately wants a genuine mark. She's landed herself with a massive student loan for this, also we've financially supported her to give her the best possible education. If she doesn't come out with the grade she's hoping for due to strikes, feels like it's all been for nothing. We'll still be very proud of her, but that doesn't help if she doesn't come out with the result she's aiming for and will never know if it's the correct grade.

It will get marked, just not yet. At my work, not that many staff are in UCU so the impact is more limited than you might think.

murasaki you sound fairly confident on this. Don't suppose if you know for sure that's what'll happen?

Every student is in a different situation, but DD can certainly wait for her work to be marked. One of her future options will more than likely require a graded pass rather than a pass/fail grade.

Sadly University of Edinburgh have announced their not marking dissertations/their final pieces of work. All that time and effort, not to get feedback and a true grade - DD is absolutely devastated.

@ifonly4 I can only.speak for my dept within my workplace. If Edinburgh have said that, I'm appalled.

@murasakiit's not true.

My dc has had 1 mark back ,awaiting dissertation, 2 exams, 1 paper and a field report. If any of it gets marked it will be in dribs and drabs and certainly not complete enough for their acceptance at masters course at another university. During their field trip, the staff were also on strike for 2 days so there was no support for their work. It’s a shambles but what can you do? The university has said it’s communicating with others to ensure progression but the reality is that the ‘trust us’ bits of paper they’re bandying about isn’t worth much. Dc is so stressed out

DS1 had a fake 'graduation' the other day for his degree, which is not being marked, for the foreseeable future. This is for Cambridge University.

Attempted contact with the person/office dealing with the marking boycott just led to a standarised email reply, trotting out the 'party-line'/ platitudes but no sense of any progress being made on students having their degree marked.

The only clear statement was that as DS1, like all his peers, attended the 'fake' graduation ceremony, he forfeited the right to have a real graduation at any later date if work ever gets marked at all. Thanks for letting him know.......

According to Edinburgh university there are some kind of preliminary talks between UCU and UCEA this Friday.

Not sure what progress there will be as both sides have set out why they consider themselves unable to budge and are committed to a UK wide solution.

My DS has just finished first year and has only had one of his 3 exams marked but some of his class mates have had all of theirs marked. The university are suggesting that those with unmarked papers will get a mark given to them based on previous exams but they only sat ones in Jan and he failed one of them. He worked really hard to make sure he did better and now he's being marked on first semester work. We have no idea if he is progressing to 2nd year. The universities need to be working much harder to get these exams marked even if that means paying outside examiners. I feel so sorry for those final year students who are having their degrees ruined by this.

We went to fake graduation too at Durham. They called it a ‘celebration’. Also forfeited real graduation event in spring by attending fake one. Durham isn’t being fully open about the numbers affected as it’s including interim classifications in their total of degree awards. Unfortunately Dc hasn’t even enough marks for an interim 😞

I'm not sure about the M university, at others I have heard the plan was the marks would be confirmed in October exam boards. However I get the vibe marking is not being done as planned so it may drag on, hopefully I am mistaken.

I've been wondering if that now the industrial action is over (or paused) the universities are legally able to hire additional temporary resources to mark assignments. Obviously brings its own set of problems, but if the marking can't be accommodated in current workloads then something drastic is needed.