Section 15

All courses leading to a Nottingham Trent University award (and those at delegated centres) must have an explicit assessment strategy available for staff and students.
The Course Leader has the lead responsibility for the implementation of the assessment strategy for each academic session (including the production, operation and monitoring of the Assessment Feedback plan).
Assessment tasks should be appropriate to the learning outcomes and level, reliable, valid, open and fair.
Assessment should be designed and planned at course level with a focus on integration and cohesion across the course.
Frequent and regular formative assessment should take place, often in class, to enable students to reflect on their learning.
Students should receive feedback on assessments within three weeks of the submission date.
All assessment tasks, criteria and marking schemes must be adequately planned and designed, and checked by an academic peer (moderation).
Moderation of marking is generally undertaken by reviewing a sample of students' marked work.
Moderation can also be undertaken through double or team marking, or as second marking. Double or team marking should be used for dissertations and major projects at final award level. Students must receive feedback on their academic performance in accordance with the Assessment and Feedback plan.
Statistical analyses (means and standard deviations) should be undertaken as part of the moderation process to identify anomalies and trends which can then be addressed by one or more of the preceding moderation techniques.
Schools should ensure that mechanisms are in place to ensure the resolution of differences in cases where these moderation procedures demonstrate unacceptable variation in assessment approaches and outcomes.
Anonymous marking is used for ALL timed written examinations within Nottingham Trent University courses, for which papers will be identified only by student numbers.
It is the responsibility of each course committee / team / subject area annually to identify and agree which of the remaining assessed tasks will or will not be marked anonymously and to have a clear rationale for the decision in each case.
At levels that contribute to the final award, the external examiner should be involved in monitoring the moderation process at appropriate stages - the review of samples of assessed work should normally take place on site.
Each course must be governed by a board of examiners.
Specific guidance is available on the utilisation of e-Assessment within courses as an appendix to Section 15.
Full details can be found in Section 15 of the ASQ Handbook.

Section 15: Assessment Principles and Policies