Semester 2 - Exam data, Mitigations, UG project deadline

Dear all I hope this semester is going well for all of you. The University has recently e-mailed you regarding the mitigation measures put in place for this semester. This email is to follow up on that one, and additionally to give you some statistics concerning course results from our recent Boards of Examiners, and some instructions about how to access marked exam scripts through Gradescope. 

-Mitigations this semester You will have seen from a recent email (https://mailings.ed.ac.uk/27JU-1PFQ5-32/sv.aspx) the University’s approach to mitigate the impact of covid this semester for all students. We won’t reiterate all of the points here - a full explanation is available on the following page: https://www.ed.ac.uk/students/welcome-back/continuing-your-studies/exams-and-assessment   What we will mention is some particular comments on what this means for you in the School.

• Year Organisers have been in touch with Course Organisers to discuss coursework deadlines, and to make sure that these are being considered and where appropriate extensions or other mitigations (such as counting the 'best n of m’ hand-ins) are in place. 
• If you need to notify us of special circumstances affecting your ability to complete work, the accepted reasons for this have been expanded (see the email)
• If you need support with talking through any aspect of the process for special circumstances our student support officers in the School can help (studentsupport@maths.ed.ac.uk).
• In the Boards of Examiners in May we will make greater use of “credit awarded on aggregate” for progression to your next stage of study. This change means that there is an increase in the number of credits you are allowed to fail of non-essential material and still progress.

-Grade distributions on courses, scaling, and getting your marked exam script We want to provide some statistics and information about the recent Boards of Examiners for the courses that were completed last semester. We have summarised information here:

Pre-Honours exam data 

There you will find how the average on courses have changed over the last few years, and lastly some information on which courses had some scaling in the last semester.

Lastly, the following document:

Reviewing marked exams in Gradescope

contains some information about your marked exam scripts and how these will appear to you in our marking software Gradescope. The details of how the mark scheme appears is a little complicated - but is explained in the document, so that when you have your script released back through Gradescope you can get a clearer sense of what the marking means and how it adds up. We’ll start to release marked exam scripts in this way next week. Best wishes

&c.

Dear all I hope this semester is going well for all of you. The University has recently e-mailed you regarding the mitigation measures put in place for this semester. This email is to follow up on that one, and additionally give you some statistics concerning course results from our recent Boards of Examiners, and some instructions about how to access marked exam scripts through Gradescope. Firstly though, to single out one specific deadline extension, namely the deadline for the final year undergraduate projects.

-Project and Dissertation deadline for UG final year projects After consultation, we have decided that it would be best to move this deadline - which will now be on Friday 2nd April (Week 11). The change of deadline from Week 7 is to give you more time to write your report should you need it, not to add extra mathematical content, so supervisors will not be available generally after Week 7 for weekly meetings, although they will be happy to read and comment on parts of your writing up until nearer the new deadline. Our strong advice, based on previous year’s experience, is to make sure to plan time appropriately [as a group if you are doing a group project]. You don’t need to use all of the time up to that date, and can still submit early! The previous deadline in Week 7 had been chosen to be separate from most other deadlines for coursework, and so you need to organise your schedule carefully with other assessments that happen in the last weeks of the semester.

-Mitigations this semester You will have seen from a recent email (https://mailings.ed.ac.uk/27JU-1PFQ5-32/sv.aspx) the University’s approach to mitigate the impact of covid this semester for all students. We won’t reiterate all of the points here - a full explanation is available on the following page: https://www.ed.ac.uk/students/welcome-back/continuing-your-studies/exams-and-assessment   What we will mention is some particular comments on what this means for you in the School.

• Year Organisers have been in touch with Course Organisers to discuss coursework deadlines, and to make sure that these are being considered and where appropriate extensions or other mitigations (such as counting the 'best n of m’ hand-ins) are in place.
• If you need to notify us of special circumstances affecting your ability to complete work, the accepted reasons for this have been expanded (see the email)
• If you need support with talking through any aspect of the process for special circumstances our student support officers in the School can help (studentsupport@maths.ed.ac.uk).
• In the Boards of Examiners in May we will make greater use of “credit awarded on aggregate” for progression to your next stage of study. This change means that there is an increase in the number of credits you are allowed to fail and still progress.
• Finally, we will consider wider borderlines where students are considered for promotion from a grade to the one above in their final degree classification.

-Grade distributions on courses, scaling, and getting your marked exam script We want to provide some statistics and information about the recent Boards of Examiners for the courses that were completed last semester. We have summarised information here:

Honours exam data

MSc exam data

There you will find how the average on courses have changed over the last few years, what the distribution of year averages looks like, and lastly some information on which courses had some scaling in the last semester.

Lastly, the following document:

Reviewing marked exams in Gradescope

contains some information about your marked exam scripts and how these will appear to you in our marking software Gradescope. The details of how the mark scheme appears is a little complicated - but is explained in the document, so that when you have your script released back through Gradescope you can get a clearer sense of what the marking means and how it adds up. We’ll start to release marked exam scripts in this way next week.

Best wishes

&c

Dear all I hope this semester is going well for all of you. The University has recently e-mailed you regarding the mitigation measures put in place for this semester. This email is to follow up on that one, and additionally give you some statistics concerning course results from our recent Boards of Examiners, and some instructions about how to access marked exam scripts through Gradescope.  -Mitigations this semester You will have seen from a recent email (https://mailings.ed.ac.uk/27JU-1PFQ5-32/sv.aspx) the University’s approach to mitigate the impact of covid this semester for all students. We won’t reiterate all of the points here - a full explanation is available on the following page: https://www.ed.ac.uk/students/welcome-back/continuing-your-studies/exams-and-assessment   What we will mention is some particular comments on what this means for you in the School.

• Programme Directors have been in touch with Course Organisers to discuss coursework deadlines, and to make sure that these are being considered and where appropriate extensions are in place.
• If you need to notify us of special circumstances affecting your ability to complete work, the accepted reasons for this have been expanded (see the email)
• If you need support with talking through any aspect of the process for special circumstances our student support officers in the School can help (studentsupport@maths.ed.ac.uk).
• In the Boards of Examiners in May we will make greater use of “credit awarded on aggregate” should you need it for award of a diploma. 
• We will consider wider borderlines where students are considered for promotion from a grade to the one above in their final degree classification.
• Lastly there are new rules for the award of Merit and Distinction grades which make these easier to obtain.

-Grade distributions on courses, scaling, and getting your marked exam script We want to provide some statistics and information about the recent Boards of Examiners for the courses that were completed last semester. We have summarised information here:

Honours exam data

MSc exam data

There you will find how the average on courses have changed over the last few years, what the distribution of year averages looks like, and lastly some information on which courses had some scaling in the last semester.

Lastly, the following document:

Reviewing marked exams in Gradescope

contains some information about your marked exam scripts and how these will appear to you in our marking software Gradescope. The details of how the mark scheme appears is a little complicated - but is explained in the document, so that when you have your script released back through Gradescope you can get a clearer sense of what the marking means and how it adds up. We’ll start to release marked exam scripts in this way next week.

Best wishes &c