Is there a 'standard' for grading an undergraduate degree?

[SlightlySeethrough]

I didn't go to Uni so don't fully understand how things are graded, and this has been on my mind....

If you are at mid tier Uni (say: Manchester Met / NTU / Oxford Brooks ) rather than a RG or higher ranking Uni, are your assignments being marked against your peers or a wider/more general benchmark?

DS picked his Uni as it had a very modern approach to a more traditional humanities subject that he enjoys. He does have to write essays and will have to write a final dissertation, but equally there are more modern assignments - podcasts/short films etc that count towards his final grade. When we spoke to head of department at a couple of RG Unis the same subject was much more essay and exam heavy.

We didn't think about it at the time, but does that mean he could (in theory) get a First or a 2:1 in the same subject, doing less 'academic' work than those in higher ranked Universities? Is he being marked against his University peers who are probably less academic that someone doing the same subject at Cambridge or Durham? How does it work?

Exactly @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. My DD (Durham) presented at a conference of 290 people (her audience was 50 as several going on at once) in Y1 and had to produce all her slides. Fortunately for her she almost went in to 2D animation so the graphics were no problem for her!

From my university admin experience, I'd hazard a guess that vocational subjects are more comparable from one institution to another because of professional accreditation. I'm thinking of medicine, nursing and other health disciplines. I know the British Psychological Society accreditation process from having to wrestle with it. My academic colleagues felt that any undergraduate psychology degree that was BPS accredited should be good enough preparation for our Master's course. We did have a rigorous research-focussed interview, admittedly, which not surprisingly demonstrated that not all students with a 2.1 or a First had really got to grips with research methods and stats.

Research posters are probably as big a challenge as an essay or report, because of the need to be concise and make good decisions about what to include. Students can’t just write screeds of unimportant stuff, as many of them like to do. The fact that they have to explain and discuss the poster means it’s more difficult for them to plagiarise or use AI. My old department has used poster presentations for at least 15 years.

Yes. For a start you need to attract viewers to come and look at your poster, and when they are there keep them engaged. The space on a poster is limited so getting your whole message across is a challenge. Simply pasting the pages of a research report on to a wall isn’t going to work. A more concise visual approach is required.

Unis are autonomous but the FHEQ and subject benchmark standards help to align grades somewhat.
https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2018/07/02/degree-standards-universities/

Yes, I can see there's a particular skill in laying it out, which is different from writing an essay or article. What I meant was, surely the rigour and challenge are similar to writing a peer-reviewed article. I had a colleague who organised an academic conference every year which included poster presentations and they were all peer reviewed, IIRC.

Although it’s clear that there can’t be a national standard for degrees, the lack of rigour in assessment, even within a university, drives me up the wall. Some of DD’s peers (top RG uni) chose their third year modules based on which usually scored highly. Subjects which are extremely competitive to get into and very challenging give about 20% 2:2s whereas some liberal arts courses which require limited work, and are regarded by other students as a bit of a joke, give 3% 2:2s. How are employers supposed to compare? The university blind recruitment is an insult; students with a first from many universities wouldn’t get in to the top ones and to exclude 2:2 students from top institutions is unfair.

However, DD has still had to create websites for assessments, even though she’d much rather do exams. DH has been presenting posters at conferences for 30 years so I don’t have a problem with that as an assessment method.

Posters are created to promote your work to a wider audience. The assessment criteria are different to those used to assess the research report the poster is based on, for example.

In my experience, they are rarely stand alone pieces of work. If more detail is required, the full report is there to read.

My (mature) undergraduate experience was back in the late 1980s when a first from a RG really meant something. I had to get a 1st as I wanted to go into academia and needed to compete for postgrad funding. A 2.1 would not have been good enough. I can remember applying for a postgrad course in London and being encouraged on the basis of "you have a 1st from uni X". However my understanding now is that unless you are going into certain professions like law or banking or academia then the quality of your degree and which uni you went to matter far less than hitherto. Many employers now have a blind recruitment process. Grade inflation has now made a nonsense of the quality of degrees with nearly 50% getting a 1st. Back in my day it was 10% or less.

University blind recruitment makes a farce of the whole system anyway when the student with a first from 300th-ranked Uni of the Back of Beyond is theoretically on a level playing field with a top ten uni.

From what I saw of the assessment of the courses of my two DCs (one STEM subject, one humanities and both got firsts from top 20 unis) the whole uni system is broken. Too little teaching/ supervision, coursework ruined by absent and disengaged students, modules too strongly linked to academic staff obscure interests (rather than real world application/relevance).
Cost: £50k in student loans for a piece of paper which increasingly means nothing in a economic environment of high graduate unemployment.

Posters?! Is this year 9?! Gordon Bennett. Times have changed since my 1990s degree. Call me old fashioned (& I’m sure many of you will) but to my mind, a degree implies some kind of academic rigour. I’m not sure drawing a fucking poster (unless you’re doing something art or perhaps comms related ) is the best way to show your intellect.

Designing posters and delivering podcasts are way more useful for the workplace.

I was thinking this myself, particularly when I read that more than 50% of students at Imperial University get a 1st compared to 31% to 33% of Cambridge students. Does that mean that Imperial is a very good university (which I am sure it is), or that Cambridge has difficult exams?

My husband was under the impression that the tests were standardised in some way, but I am not sure.

Exams are externally moderated, but not standardised

A reasonable guess re QS, but degree classifications are not one of their criteria.

The biggest one, counting for 40%, is peer reputation. It can be, and is, gamed.

I don't think you understand what an academic poster actually is. It's not 'drawing a fucking poster' it is a method of presenting and communicating your research visually.
They are used extensively at academic conferences as a way for academics to present their research. There is a lot of intellectual skill required as it's not easy to condense a large amount of research into a visually appealing post or infographic.
It's also a very valuable skill for the workplace.

Being able to communicate succinctly in your foreign language is a good skill tested by poster making!

Times haven’t changed at all. Academic posters predate your 1990s degree.

@FedUpandFiftyNine Surely some academic degrees should be linked closely to the research of lecturers? It’s how learning is broadened for students and not all learning can be about work or should be. There should be ample opportunities within a good university for honing employment skills.

Yes. I attached an image of a student about to present his a few posts above this one. It's a pity @birdpoo hadn't read the many posts explaining about academic posters before suggesting students were being asked to draw pictures on sugar paper.

Haha, ok I take it back. Clearly it wasn’t a thing in my degree (90s RG before it was a thing) as I didn’t do them at all - all essays and exams. I still maintain that they should still be the mainstay of an academic degree imo.

Why do you think essays and exams should be a mainstay? They aren’t always the best way of assessing a students skills and knowledge.
Essays in particular are under scrutiny at the moment due to the rapid development of AI. It’s getting harder to detect the use of AI so we’re having to think very carefully about how we assess students to ensure their assignments are their own work.

Oh come on - any first year uni student should have decent PowerPoint skills and be able to create a visually engaging presentation. The skill levels of our new science grads are usually very high.

I agree - also an increasing number of peer-reviewed journals now demand visual abstracts to accompany primary research submissions.

Many desirable jobs have rigorous selection processes. The hope is that more demanding degree programmes have put students in a better position to land these jobs.