Postgraduate (Taught) Core Information 2019-2020

The University has a set of high-level principles which apply to all of its activities. In addition, the University and Lancaster University Students’ Union have worked together on a Students’ Charter to set out the standards to which the University and its students aspire.

You also need to be aware of the Student Discipline Regulations.

• Welcome Week: 30 September 2019 – 4 October 2019
• Michaelmas Term: 4 October 2019 – 13 December 2019
• Christmas Vacation: 14 December 2019 – 9 January 2020
• Lent Term: 10 January 2020 – 20 March 2020
• Easter Vacation: 21 March 2020 – 16 April 2020
• Summer Term: 17 April 2020 – 26 June 2020

If you are a full-time student, you are expected to be available for attendance during Welcome Week and between 9.00 a.m. and 7.00 p.m. on all weekdays during term time.  If your department requires you to attend at other times you will be informed in good time.  As a postgraduate student you will also be working during the extended summer period and may be expected to attend frequently in person during this time, as well as keeping in contact with your department.  The precise form of the work undertaken during the summer period varies according to the degree you are taking, so you must consult your department to ensure that you understand exactly what is expected of you during this period.

Your working week during term time is expected to consist of 40 hours of study, including lectures, tutorials, seminars, workshops, practicals (depending on your subjects) as well as private study including preparation for timetabled study, reading through and understanding any material provided to you as well as your own notes, further reading of published materials, completion of coursework, group work, preparation for exams and tests, etc.  You may also be given work to complete during vacations.

These dates may be different for the Medical School and for part-time and distance learners.  If you are on a Medical degree, or you are a part-time or distance student, please consult your department to ensure that you understand exactly what applies to you and your degree.

Exams may be held at any time during the academic year – your department will inform you well in advance.

You have been allocated a Lancaster email account. Make sure that you activate your account, change your initial password and test your email account. Your email address will include your name then @lancaster.ac.uk.  Your Lancaster email address will be used for all official correspondence from the University. You should check it on a daily basis.

You are admitted to the University on your academic record. The University welcomes all students and has an array of support services to ensure no student feels disadvantaged. We recognise that you may have medical conditions or disabilities that may impact upon your studies and your life at the University, and we will do what we can to alleviate the impact of these.

Your department and the Graduate College will be able to offer you some support and advice, and the University also has a Disabilities Service which provides guidance and support to ensure your learning support needs are met, especially with regards to exams and assessments. There may also be financial help available.  Please contact the Service for advice or with specific requests (for example, you may want to be assessed for dyslexia).

Further details of the health services available at the University.

Although you are welcome to contact staff in your department individually, you will also be given the opportunity to elect one or more student representative(s) who will act as a channel of communication between you and your department. You will have the opportunity to put yourself forward for election to this role if you wish. Your department will give you more details of this.

Student representatives are members of various formal committees of the University, ensuring that student opinion is voiced and heard. You can find out more about becoming an Academic Rep on the Lancaster University Student Union (LUSU) website. At the end of each module you will be emailed by the university and asked to provide feedback through an online questionnaire. This feedback is then used by us in a number of ways, all of which contribute to our processes for assuring the quality of our teaching. These processes include:

• Discussion by your department to identify module strengths and weaknesses and develop proposals for module refinement
• Analysis within the department’s annual teaching report to identify examples of good practice and areas for improvement; this report is discussed at Faculty and University level so that different parts of the University may learn from one another.

You will also be asked to participate in the Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES). This is a national survey which enables us to compare the effectiveness of Lancaster University’s teaching and learning with that of other universities across the UK. Please do take part; we take all feedback very seriously and aim to act decisively in response to serious constructive feedback.

When you arrive, you will enrol for your Michaelmas Term modules.  Enrolment for later modules may take place at the same time or later – your department will let you know.  You do need to consider your enrolment choices very carefully, since changes may not be accepted once a module has started.  It is essential that you make serious efforts to perform as well as you can in your enrolled modules.  It is not normally possible to repeat an individual module, replace one module with another retrospectively or repeat a year of study.

The main features of these are:

• Your assessed work will be marked using percentages and these are what you will see on returned work. These will be used for the purposes of calculating your overall module results and your final degree classification – distinction, merit, pass or fail.
• The pass mark for any module is 50%. To qualify for a degree, your overall average must be at least 50% and any modules which you have not passed must be condoned, which means that you are given credit for taking them even though you have not achieved a pass mark.
• Any failed modules may be resat. Only one resit opportunity is permitted. Resits are compulsory if your mark is 39% or lower, but failed module marks for most modules may be condoned if the mark attained is at least 40%. This means that you may not need to resit a module for which you have obtained a mark between 40% and 49%; however, please bear in mind that a maximum of 45 credits may be condoned, and that if you turn down the opportunity to resit a module you will not be able to change your mind later. If you are unsure about whether to resit such a module, please ask your department for advice. Your department will let you know of any module that cannot be condoned, i.e. for which a mark of at least 50% must be obtained.
• If there are further requirements for passing your particular degree, or different regulations regarding condonation, your department will make these clear at the outset.
• Your department will make clear to you the marking method to be used for each assessment, together with the relevant marking criteria.
• The penalty for work submitted late is a reduction of ten percentage points for up to three days late and a mark of zero thereafter, except that if you have good reason for late submission you may ask permission in advance from your department for an agreed extension.
• You can expect coursework to be returned to you with a mark and full feedback within four weeks (excluding University closure days) – often it will be returned sooner than this. However, some pieces of work such as dissertations and extended projects may take longer to mark.

Full postgraduate taught assessment regulations.

The rules of the university and the examination regulations define in detail the definitions and penalties for dealing with malpractice, including plagiarism. It is important that you abide by these rules and don’t attempt to gain advantage by any unfair means. When submitting coursework, it must be your own work and any assistance must be correctly acknowledged.

We recognise that sometimes a student may break the rules accidentally.  In such cases, the University takes an educational rather than a punitive approach.  However, where rules are broken intentionally the penalties are severe.

Full details are in the University's plagiarism framework.

Every degree in the UK has one or more external examiners assigned to it.  These are experts in your subject who take an objective outsider’s look at your degree and its modules to ensure that they meet the high quality standards required, to offer constructive advice for their improvement and to discuss and confirm, along with your department, all decisions regarding degree progression and classification.

Your department will give you details of your external examiner(s) and how to access their written reports, but you may not contact them.  This is very important – our external examiners have been instructed to let us know of any attempt by any student to influence their decisions in any way.

Moodle provides activities and resources to support your learning. Lecturers utilise Moodle in a wide variety of ways to deliver learning materials (handouts, presentations, bibliographies etc.), engage you in active learning (exercises and online tests, discussion spaces and learning logs) and update you with information about your modules.

LU Portal is your personal home page for Moodle with key information about the modules you are studying, your summative grades, your library reading lists and your timetable and exam timetable in an integrated calendar.

iLancaster App provides an alternative link into Moodle when on the move, together with other useful information and advice.

Some lectures are recorded using the Panopto system. If you wish to record any other lecture, you may do so as long as you have received permission from the lecturer.

Mahara is a private and social web space to record and share reflections, start new groups, mashup both external and user generated content, create and publish portfolios and digital CVs to both an internal and external audience.

You will need your University login and password to access our eLearning services. During your study, your department and/or the student learning adviser for your faculty may also direct you to other web-based resources with advice on effective learning skills and strategies.

Sometimes because of medical, financial or personal difficulties students feel they have no alternative but to apply to suspend their studies for a year. Whilst this option can be of benefit to some students, there are drawbacks: for example, you will still not be able to claim benefits for which full-time students are ineligible while you are intercalating.

Do ensure that you seek help early if you are experiencing any problems that may adversely affect your academic work.  Speak first to your programme director or programme administrator, or call into The Base, part of Student Based Services, in University House, who will put you in touch with someone in the Student Registry if necessary.  Don’t allow yourself to drift into a situation that ends with intercalation being the only option, because without some assured financial support – a guaranteed job or financial help from your family – you could be left with no source of income.

If personal circumstances mean that you are left with no alternative but to seek a period of intercalation, please contact The Base first to arrange to discuss your application.

If you feel uncertain about carrying on at Lancaster, it is important that you talk it through with your department or another source of support such as your personal Graduate College Adviser or someone in Student Based Services. It may be, for example, that you need time to adjust to a new and unfamiliar lifestyle. This is perfectly normal. Further advice is available at http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/sbs/registry/postgrads/PGWithdrawal.htm.

Should you decide to leave, it is essential that you do not just walk out. You should contact the Student Registry within Student Based Services who will discuss your plans with you and formally approve your withdrawal. If you have any books on loan from the Library or are in possession of any university equipment or property, please make sure that you return these – it will save you and us a lot of unnecessary letters and telephone calls.

The University’s Careers Service exists to help you become as employable as possible and to be successful in obtaining a job when you finish your time as a student.  They have expertise specific to your department and subject.  We strongly advise you to visit Careers regularly so that you can use their expertise to ensure that you can put together a successful job application.

 Your department will inform you of any extra careers support provided by your department or faculty.

At Lancaster we not only value your academic accomplishments, but also recognise the importance of those activities you engage with outside your programme of study. The student experience is enhanced by including extracurricular activities and, with more graduates than ever before and increasing competition for jobs upon leaving University, these are vital to your future prospects. We want to encourage you to make the very most of your University experience and to leave Lancaster as a well-rounded graduate. We have a wealth of opportunities to get involved in with initiatives such as work placements, volunteering, extracurricular courses, societies and sports.

The Lancaster Award aims to encourage you to complete such activities, help you to pull them together in one place and then be recognised for your accomplishments. We want you to stand out from the crowd – the Lancaster Award will help you to do this.

We are committed to providing our students with a high quality learning experience. Where we fall short of this we want to be informed and to seek to rectify the failure. The vast majority of concerns raised by students are best answered or resolved quickly and informally by direct contact between the student and the relevant department/section, without the need for a formal complaint.

There may be occasions, however, where you feel the need to make an official complaint or to appeal against a decision affecting you.  This will be treated very seriously and you should follow the procedures for complaints or appeals.

The University is committed to providing an educational and working environment that is responsive to the varied needs of its members. All members of staff and students should be able to work, study and live in a safe environment founded on mutual respect without feeling threatened or demeaned. Our Response to Bullying Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Policy  provides, guidance and information on what actions you need to take if you wish to report an incident, or you can use our Unisafe applet on iLancaster to report an incident either anonymously or with your details so we can offer support. Assistance and support can also be offered by our Counselling Service or the Students’ Union.