Universities

Summary

Mr C complained about the university's response to allegations of plagiarism. In particular, he complained that the university had failed to follow procedures in the disciplinary process, and that they failed to follow procedures in relation to his academic appeal.

The university accepted that there had been failings and made a proposal for resolution, which Mr C was unhappy with.

The university agreed to re-open Mr C's complaint with a view to trying to reach a resolution, and Mr C was advised that he could bring his complaint to us in the event that he remained unhappy.

Summary

Mr C complained about the university's handling of his application to study an undergraduate degree, and therefore to qualify for home fee status. He said that there was unreasonable delay and confusion in assessing and classifying him for the purposes of tuition fees and that the application of the university's admissions policy was unreasonable in classifying him as an international student.

At the time of his application, Mr C had lived in the UK for approximately 11 years. He had been granted leave to remain outside the immigration rules by the Home Office. In response to the university's enquiries concerning his immigration status, Mr C provided details, including copies of documentation and reference numbers. The university reached the decision that Mr C did not qualify for home fee status. Subsequently, Mr C complained to the university and they established, after making an enquiry of the Home Office, that Mr C did indeed qualify for home fee status. The university acknowledged there had been errors regarding Mr C's fee status and the time taken to resolve this. They said that they were developing a fees assessment questionnaire and collaborating with relevant educational authorities to ensure this problem did not occur again.

After considering the correspondence between Mr C and the university, and the relevant guidance, we upheld Mr C's complaints. We considered the university should have acted sooner to contact the Home Office to clarify Mr C's status. We also considered that they could have communicated more clearly regarding what further information they required from Mr C.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• apologise for the failings this investigation has identified; and
• provide a further update to this office concerning the outcomes of their fee assessment meeting, and details of further action they will take to address the issues in this case.

Summary

Mr C complained on behalf of Mr A. Mr A had previously submitted an academic appeal to the University of Aberdeen in relation to the examination of his PhD thesis. The appeal was not upheld.

Mr A had concerns about the administration in relation to the oral examination of his thesis, as well as the conduct of the examination. We found that the university had double-booked the room in which Mr A's examination had been scheduled to take place. We were critical of this and upheld this part of Mr C's complaint.

We also found that Mr A's examination had lasted for three hours and that he had not been offered a break. We noted that the university's Code of Practice in relation to oral examinations stated that breaks must be agreed when examinations last longer than two hours. This had not happened and we considered that it was the responsibility of the university to ensure that a break was offered. Since the university's guidance on oral examinations did not explain the process of agreeing breaks, we considered that the university should consider reviewing this.

Mr C raised a number of concerns about the way the university handled Mr A's academic appeal. We found that the university had adequately explored Mr A's concern about the partiality of the internal examiner who examined his thesis and we did not uphold this complaint. Mr C also raised concerns about the appeal panel's consideration of Mr A's concerns about monitoring and feedback. We found that the university had been unable to provide copies of progress-monitoring records. We therefore upheld this complaint.

Mr C further complained that the university had unreasonably allowed the school to introduce a document into the appeal when Mr A had not been given prior notice of the document. We found that the procedure in relation to appeal hearings encouraged prior submission of documentary evidence. We were critical that Mr A was not provided with a copy of the document, and that the appeal panel allowed the evidence to be heard when Mr A had not received a copy. We upheld this complaint.

Finally, we considered whether the appeal panel unreasonably took inaccurate or incomplete information into account at the appeal hearing. We did not find this to have been the case and therefore we did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• apologise to Mr A for the inconvenience and anxiety caused by their failure to make reasonable arrangements to book the room;
• take steps to investigate the university's room booking system so that steps can be taken to prevent double-booking from happening again;
• apologise to Mr A for failing to offer a break during his oral examination;
• review and consider amending paragraph 11.3 of the university Code of Practice to ensure that the process of agreeing breaks is clear and ensure that when a break is offered, this is recorded;
• provide this office with evidence that improved procedures regarding record-keeping have been adopted; and
• apologise to Mr A for failing to ensure that he had an opportunity to consider the evidence prior to the appeal hearing.

Summary

Ms C complained about a three-month suspension from her studies imposed by the University of Glasgow. As an overseas student, she felt that the suspension disproportionately put her visa at risk. She also said that it excluded her from all studies and access to her tutor, caused her to incur unnecessary accommodation and course fees and affected her access to health support services.

We considered that in relation to Ms C's suspension, the university had acted in accordance with their code of student conduct procedures. We noted that when either Ms C or her solicitor contacted the university during the period of suspension with concerns related to Ms C's visa or access to her tutor, the university took reasonable steps to address these matters. In addition, Ms C had access to support services at the university by appointment. We also noted that the university had apologised to Ms C for not clarifying that she could access her student accommodation during the suspension. However, we did not consider this a significant procedural failing and noted that Ms C chose to reside elsewhere at this time. We concluded that the university had fully investigated the consequences of the suspension for Ms C and made reasonable adjustments to the code of student conduct in respect of suspensions. We did not uphold Ms C's complaint.

Summary

Mr C complained about the process and timing for appointing the examining committee for his PhD oral examination (viva). We found that the university did not follow the correct administrative process for appointing one of the examiners. Although there was no evidence this had affected the examination, we upheld this aspect of Mr C's complaint. We also found there was a delay in appointing the committee, which led to one of the examiners becoming unavailable. This meant that Mr C's viva took place six months after he submitted his thesis, rather than six weeks.

Mr C also complained about the conduct of the viva and that he did not have time to properly defend part of his thesis (study three). After considering the evidence available, we found it was likely there was at least some discussion of study three at the viva and that the viva was reasonably detailed overall. We found that there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that the conduct of the viva was unreasonable, therefore we did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint. However, we suggested the university might wish to introduce a requirement for notes to be taken at the viva, to ensure there is a record of the timing and topics discussed at future examinations.

Finally, Mr C complained that the university did not consult his supervisors during his initial appeal, or take into account the written statements they provided. We did not uphold this complaint as we found there was no requirement for the supervisors to be consulted, and it was reasonable for staff to rely on the written statements rather than seeking further comments from them. We also found that the supervisors' statements were included in the evidence considered at the initial appeal stage, although the appeals committee did not agree with the supervisors' arguments. However, we found the response to Mr C's appeal at the next stage (the senate appeal) contained some factual inaccuracies. We therefore made a recommendation to address this.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• apologise to Mr C for failing to follow their procedures in approving the examining committee, and for the delay in identifying this error;
• put in place processes to ensure that the availability of a fully approved examining committee is checked promptly when a thesis is submitted, to avoid delays in identifying any problems; and
• review their response to Mr C's senate appeal in light of the inaccuracies identified, to ensure that the overall decision not to hear the appeal was appropriate.

Summary

Mr and Mrs C complained that their daughter (Miss A) was not provided with reasonable university accommodation for her specific health needs when she needed to move flats during term time.

The university provided Miss A with a flat which they said was suitable for her. However, they did accept that they did not have relevant information about Miss A's requirements available to them when they checked the accommodation system because of an issue with information-sharing between departments. This has subsequently been resolved. The university worked hard to find alternatives for Miss A and support her through other services. For these reasons we did not uphold the complaint.

Summary

Mr C suffered from a long-term illness of which he had made the university aware when he began his studies. After his final exams, Mr C made a request for the university to take into account special circumstances of illness when determining his grades (known as S-coding). Mr C complained to us that the university unreasonably rejected this request. He also complained that they did not communicate this outcome directly to him until five months after the decision was made.

Mr C appealed this decision, providing evidence that he was suffering from another illness alongside his long-term illness while taking exams. The university rejected this appeal on the grounds that Mr C should have made his additional illness known to them at the time of exams and Mr C complained to us about this. Mr C appealed this decision again, stating that the reason he had not disclosed his additional illness was because he did not want to discuss his long-term illness with staff. The appeal was again rejected and Mr C complained to us about this also. The university said they had carefully considered all aspects of Mr C's circumstances and found that there was no compelling evidence to suggest that Mr C's additional illness could not have been disclosed to them at the time of the exams.

During our investigation, we found that the university's policies on special circumstances affecting exams are clear, and that the university had followed these policies. We did consider that the university should have made their decision on the original request known to Mr C earlier. However, during the course of our investigation the university changed their policy to ensure students are notified of the outcomes of such decisions within ten working days of the decision being made.

We also found that the university had reasonably considered Mr C's reasons for not disclosing his additional illness at the time of his examinations and that they had reasonably considered the medical evidence he provided.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• offer an apology for the unreasonable delay in communicating the outcome of Mr C's request for retroactive S-coding.

Summary

Mr C complained that his university withdrew him from a course due to lack of engagement and about the handling of his appeal.

We found the university's process for withdrawing Mr C was not applied in line with their policy and there was an issue with the accuracy of records that it was the university's responsibility to make and keep. We upheld this aspect of the complaint.

We found that the university followed the process for appeals appropriately. We did not uphold this aspect of the complaint.

Recommendations

We recommended that the university:

• apologise to Mr C for failing to ensure accurate attendance records were maintained and for not giving consideration to his improved attendance following receipt of the emails from the university;
• remind relevant staff of the importance of maintaining accurate attendance records; and
• reflect on the findings in this case and ensure the student engagement policy reflects the need for appropriate exercise of discretion as part of due process.

Summary

Miss C appealed to the university that she had failed her final exams due to ongoing personal circumstances. The university did not accept her appeal and Miss C complained to us.

We found that Miss C had reported personal circumstances twice in previous years of study; however, she did not continue to report them to the university as her studies progressed. It was only when she found out that she had failed her final exams that she raised the issue of personal circumstances.

Miss C did not provide the university with evidence of how her personal circumstances affected her at the time of her final exams. As the university acted in line with their procedures, we did not uphold Miss C's complaint.

Summary

Mr C was a Masters student. The university decided not to pass his project dissertation, as a result of which he was not awarded a masters degree. Mr C appealed the decision to the university and then complained to us. His view was that the feedback the university gave him about their decision not to pass his project dissertation was deficient. He also complained that the university had acted unreasonably by not providing feedback on his draft literary review.

The university considered that Mr C's appeal was a straightforward challenge to academic judgement, which is excluded as grounds for appeal. Mr C was aware that we do not have the authority to investigate complaints about action taken by the university in the exercise of academic judgement by them. Mr C's complaint to us was that the university had acted unreasonably by failing to provide any evidence or explanation that they had considered the information he had provided to question the factual accuracy of the feedback he received. Following investigation, we concluded that we were satisfied that the university's appeals sub-committee had been provided with all relevant documents, including the documents where Mr C said he complained about the factual accuracy of the feedback, before they reached a decision on his appeal. We were satisfied that the university had provided a reasonable explanation as to why they considered that Mr C was questioning academic judgement and that the sub-committee's report provided sufficient explanation/evidence that they had considered his appeal and gave the reasons for their decision. We therefore did not uphold this aspect of Mr C's complaint.

We also did not uphold the complaint that the university had acted unreasonably by failing to provide feedback to Mr C on his draft literary review. Mr C said he was told that he would receive feedback if the review did not meet the required standard. When this did not happen, he assumed that it had met the required standard. However, the examiner's feedback he received indicated that this was not, in fact, the case. Following our investigation, the only evidence we found that indicated that Mr C may be provided with feedback was in an email from a member of staff to him regarding the review which stated that '… feedback will be given if required'. It was not clear whether this was if the university deemed it was required or if the student required (ie asked) for it. However, when Mr C did not receive feedback, there is no evidence that he contacted the university about this. We did not consider that it was reasonable for Mr C to assume that, in the absence of feedback, the review met the required standard.