Exam procedures and regulations
Your assessed work will be graded using reduced scale step marking, a scheme that uses a restricted number of marks with the 0-100% range. Reduced scale stepped marking will provide you with greater clarity about the quality of your work. It will allow clearer comparisons between marks attained in one course unit and another. Reduced scale stepped marking is also intended to allow excellence to be appropriately rewarded. Markers are encouraged to reward the best quality work with the highest marks, using the full mark range, but this doesn’t always happen. Reduced scale stepped marking will help markers to make greater use of the full range of marks at the upper and lower ends of the scale, thus ensuring that marks reflect the quality of the work presented.
Reduced Scale Step Marking - a guide for undergraduates
Further information about exam procedures
The University operates an anonymous marking policy. To ensure that your anonymity from staff and examiners will be preserved only your Student ID number should appear on your assessment (i.e. examination scripts and any coursework assessment). Your ID number should be on all pages of your coursework.
When you submit coursework via Blackboard you will be prompted by the link to enter a submission title. Please note that this is not your name or your essay title but your student ID and course code with no spaces, as shown in the example below:
Submission title: 7654321BMAN11111
Moderation is the process by which we make sure that assessments are graded to the same standard from one year to another and across different programmes. Every year, exam papers and other assessment tasks are reviewed before you are asked to sit them to check that they are not significantly more difficult (or easy) than in previous years and to ensure that they provide opportunities for you to demonstrate your skills and abilities in the subject. Once first marking is complete, a second marker (known as a moderator) reviews the marking and the marks for each course unit to check for consistency within and across course units. The same process is then carried out by an External Examiner from another institution as a final check.
A summary of this process is explained in this video.
External Examiners are individuals from another institution or organisation who monitor the assessment processes of the University to ensure fairness and academic standards. They ensure that assessment and examination procedures have been fairly and properly implemented and that decisions have been made after appropriate deliberation. They also ensure that standards of awards and levels of student performance are at least comparable with those in equivalent higher education institutions.
An overview of External Examiners’ reports relating to Alliance MBS undergraduate programmes will be shared with student representatives at our undergraduate Staff Student Liaison Committee, where details of any actions carried out by the programme team/School in response to the External Examiners’ comments will be discussed. Students should contact their student representatives if they require any further information about External Examiners’ reports or the process for considering them.
The Programme External Examiners for the School’s Undergraduate Programmes are listed below. Please note that it is inappropriate for students to make direct contact with External Examiners under any circumstances, in particular with regard to a student’s individual performance in assessments. In the event that a student does attempt to make contact with an External Examiner directly, External Examiners have been requested not to respond but to report the matter to the School contact. If students have any assessment related queries they should contact the Assessment Team (Email: ambs.assessment@manchester.ac.uk).
BSc (Hons) Accounting
Name: Richard Crossley
Institution: University of Leeds
BSc (Hons) Information Technology Management for Business (and related programmes)
Name: Amjad Fayoumi
Institution: University of Lancaster
BSc (Hons) International Business Finance and Economics
Name: Professor George Lodorfos- chased recently for a nomination for a replacement as there term ends this year.
Institution: Leeds Beckett University
BSc (Hons) Management (and related programmes)
BSc (Hons) International Management
Name: Vera Pavlou
Institution: University of Glasgow
BSc (Hons) International Management with American Business Studies
Name: Vera Pavlou
Institution: University of Glasgow
Please be assured that considerable care is taken in assembling, checking and double-checking marks and determining results.
It is the policy of AMBS not to selectively remark examination papers or coursework on request. Examination scripts and coursework will only be remarked where the Chair of the Board of Examiners has good cause to believe that there has been a marking irregularity. Such circumstances would normally be exceptional.
Due to the School’s rigorous marking, moderation and quality assurance procedures and in line with Regulation XIX, it is not permitted to question academic judgement. Therefore, students are not automatically entitled to have their work re-marked. If you are disatisfied with any of your results, we recommend reviewing your assessment feedback and speaking with your academic advisor to provide further context to the marks attained.
The meeting of an Examination Board is an important occasion. For students it represents the culmination of their period of study that is important for their future. For staff it represents the output for their teaching and support of the students and their learning. For the University it represents the opportunity to verify that academic standards are appropriate in the relevant subject with the help of External Examiners.
Examination Boards operate on the authority of Senate but are organised and administered by Schools under the direction of the Head of School. Within the framework of the University’s degree regulations, an Examination Board will reach decisions on the award of a final degree classification and decisions on progression through each year of the programme.
No student names are used during the decision making process at any type of Examination Board; referencing is by Student ID numbers only. The purpose of this is to remove any opportunity for bias in the decision making process.
AMBS has the following Examination Boards:
- Award Boards decide upon and issue final awards with External Examiner input.
- Progression Boards consider marks of individual students for the purposes of deciding upon progression and reassessment from Years 1 to 2, 2 to 3 at Undergraduate level.
- Resit Boards consider the performance of students in the August re-assessment period (referrals and deferrals) for the purposes of progression.
- Divisional and Course Unit Boards consider the course units offered by the Academic Division and the range of assessment; reflect on student performance; standards set and achieved and inform the Award/Progression Boards of any issues arising.
Dates of Examination Boards 23-24
Award Boards
- Final Year Undergraduate: 2 4June 2024
Progression Boards
- 1st Year Undergraduate: 2 July 2024
- 2nd Year Undergraduate: 1 July 2024
Resit Boards
- Undergraduate: provisionally 13 September 2024
Mitigating Circumstances and Examination Boards
Requests for mitigating circumstances are considered by a Mitigating Circumstances Panel in advance of the meeting of the Examination Board. If the Mitigating Circumstances Panel has accepted that a student’s performance may have been significantly affected by personal circumstances, this will be reported to the Examination Board. It is then the Examination Board that will determine how to apply the recommendations of the Mitigating Circumstances Panel in light of the student’s assessment results. In each case, the Board will start from the available assessment results and the decision that they imply.
- BSc Accounting with/without Industrial/Professional Experience
- BSc Business Accounting
- BSc Information Technology Management for Business with/without Industrial Experience
- BA/BSc International Business, Finance and Economics with/without Industrial/Professional Experience
- BSc International Management
- BSc International Management with American Business Studies
- BSc Management / Management (specialism) with/without Industrial/Professional Experience
- Understanding compensation rules
We are usually approached to provide detail of student rankings on programmes. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the programmes we offer and the vast number of options available this is not a request we can fulfil in any meaningful way. An unofficial transcript can be provided by the Programme Team, which will detail the courses you have taken alongside your marks. This should be sufficient for any application for postgraduate study.