Undergraduate 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

A number of degree schemes, such as Medicine, observe different term dates.

You are expected to be available for attendance between 9.00 a.m. and 7.00 p.m. on all weekdays during term time.  In addition, all new students are expected to be available during Welcome Week – this is optional for continuing students.  If your department requires you to attend at other times you will be informed in good time.

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 reading through and understanding the lecture 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.

Provisionally the main examination periods are:

• Part I (1st year): 1 June 2020 – 20 June 2020
• Part II (2nd, 3rd and 4th years): 9 May 2020 – 14 June 2020
• Resits (Part I and Part II): 17 August 2020 – 21 August 2020

Some departments hold examinations at different times – if this is the case, your department will tell you.

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 will be allocated an academic tutor within your major department who will meet you on a one-to-one basis at least once a term. You will also be able to contact your academic tutor to make an appointment at any mutually convenient time.  This tutor will be interested in and knowledgeable about your progress and will be in a position to provide academic advice and support.

Your department(s) will let you know who your academic tutor is and how to contact him/her.  Where possible, your academic tutor will remain the same throughout your studies at Lancaster University.

In addition your college will have a College Advisor Team, made up of College Advisors who can provide advice and support to you on accessing university services, and on any other issues you may need help with. Your college will give you details of your College Advisor Team and how to contact them.

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 college and department 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 is also financial help that is 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 about 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 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.

In your final year of undergraduate study, you will also be asked to participate in the National Student Survey (NSS), which enables us to compare the effectiveness of Lancaster University's teaching and learning with that of other universities across the UK.

We take your feedback very seriously and aim to act decisively in response to serious constructive feedback.

In October of your first year, when you arrive, you will enrol for your Part 1 modules, and in April/May of all years except the final year you will enrol for your Part 2 modules. You do need to consider your enrolment choices very carefully.  Changes at Part 1 enrolment will be accepted only in the first three weeks of a module and at Part 2 in the first two weeks of a module.  After this, it is essential that you make serious efforts to perform as well as you can in your enrolled modules.

Lancaster’s Part 1 scheme is designed to give you as much flexibility as possible within your degree programme.  You may change your intended programme of study at Part 2 enrolment (which will take place in May) to any major for which your Part 1 subjects qualify you.  However, any changes are reliant on your achieving a majorable mark in any subject you wish to take as a major. You are still permitted to change your programme of study (Part 1 subjects and results permitting) at any time before the start of your second year.

If you decide to change your programme of study before Part 2 enrolment in May you need to discuss this with the department(s) involved. If you decide after you have enrolled for Part 2 courses (for example, on receipt of examination results) then you should contact the Student Registry as soon as possible.  You can download a change of programme form.

You can expect to be taught by a variety of staff during your degree.  Most of the time these will be Lancaster University academic staff, but on occasion it may be appropriate for others to be involved as well.  However, whoever is teaching you, all learning and teaching activities and all assignments will be approved and monitored by a member of the University’s current academic staff.  Where other people are teaching you (beyond the occasional guest contribution) or marking your work, their use will have been approved in advance at both Department and Faculty level, taking account of their experience, expertise and (where necessary) English language ability.  All staff new to teaching will be undertaking training to ensure that they provide a high-quality service to you.

You can expect your teaching to be undertaken in a variety of styles, ranging from large lectures to smaller group activities – seminar discussions (normally with a maximum of fifteen students per tutor, often fewer), group workshops, exercise classes, team projects, practical sessions, laboratory work etc., depending on the needs of the subjects you are studying.  This variety means that there is no precise rule concerning the number of hours per week for which you have timetabled study. However, you can expect an absolute minimum of nine timetabled hours per week at Part 1 – a lot more if you are taking subjects which involve laboratory work.  At Part 2 the hours may be slightly lower as you take more responsibility for your own work by means of projects, dissertations or other major undertakings.

It is very important to recognise that timetabled teaching forms only a small part of your work at the University.  Your overall workload for the year is expected to be around 1200 hours – this includes not only formal teaching hours but also time spent on other activities including self-directed reading, checking your understanding of what you have been taught, undertaking assignments, revision for tests and exams, etc.  Over the thirty weeks of term-time this should average about 40 hours per week – the equivalent of a full-time job.  It is your responsibility to organise your working time accordingly.

For many (though not all) degree programmes, it may be possible to undertake some of your studies at a foreign university.  This is not automatic for any student: the opportunity has to be earned by making good academic progress.

Further details of the opportunities that may be available to you.

The main features of these are:

• Your assessed work will be marked using either letter grades or percentages and these are what you will see on returned work. These will be converted to an 'aggregation score' on a 24-point scale for the purposes of calculating your overall module results and your final degree class.
• 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 up to three days late is a reduction of one full letter grade. For work assessed using percentages, details of the different bandings of reductions can be found in the General Regulations for Assessment and Award. Work submitted later than three days will receive a mark of zero, except that if you have good reason for late submission you may ask for 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.
• To progress between years, any failed modules must be resat.  Only one resit opportunity is permitted, except at Part 1 where you will normally be given the option of resitting again as an external candidate or repeating the whole year.
• To qualify for a degree, 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. Failed module marks may be condoned only if the mark is close to a pass.  For all except final-year students, condonation can take place only after a resit has been attempted; however, final-year students may apply for condonation without taking a resit, as long as the application is made within five working days of the results being made available.  If no such application is made it will be assumed that the student will be attempting a resit.
• To be awarded an honours degree, you must attain an overall pass grade and have no more than 30 credits condoned at Part 2 (typically Part 2 consist of 240 credits in total).
• Degree classifications will be based on your overall aggregation score at Part 2 and there will be clear definitions of borderline scores and criteria for considering borderline cases.
• If you end your studies before you complete enough credits for an honours degree you may be awarded either:
  • A Certificate of Higher Education (CertHE) if you have completed 80 credits with a mark of 9.0 or more and a further 40 credits with a mark of 7.0 or more.
  • A Diploma of Higher Education (DipHE) if you have completed 90 credits with a mark of 9.0 or more at Part 2 and a further 30 credits with a mark of 7.0 or more at Part 2.

See the full undergraduate assessment regulations.

Note that these may be different for some specialised degrees – please check with your major department

Part 1

In order to progress from Part 1 (first year) to Part 2 (second year):

• For major subjects/themes you must achieve an overall aggregation score of 10.3 or above plus an overall aggregation score of 9 in both coursework and exam elements.
• For minor subjects/themes you must achieve an overall aggregation score of 9 or above. There is no requirement to attain a particular grade in each element.

Part 2

In order to progress from second to third/final year, you must achieve an overall aggregation score of 9 or above with no more than 30 credits condoned.  If your department offers a fourth year, e.g. for an Integrated Masters qualification, it will inform you of the progression requirements between the third and fourth years.

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. 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 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. Further advice is available at http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/sbs/registry/undergrads/withdrawal.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. The Student Registry will notify Student Finance England to have payment of your loan and tuition fees stopped, as appropriate. 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.

In order to safeguard your entitlement to funding for any future course you should seek advice as soon as possible. Full details on this, and information regarding a transfer to another course/college, may be obtained from the Student Registry.

The University’s Careers Service exists to help you become as employable as possible and to be successful in obtaining placements, internships and graduate jobs.  They have expertise specific to the course you are studying.  We strongly advise you to visit Careers regularly so that you can use their expertise to ensure that by the start of your final year you have the necessary work experience, other extra-curricular activities and knowledge of the job market to put together a successful application for your first graduate job.

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.