A response from the College of Arts indicated that discussions had taken place with regard to coordination of the various accommodation requirements for MLitt Technical Art History. MLitt Textile Conservation had indicated that progress was being made in relation to their use of Mahara. Various issues around the management and administration of PGT cohorts and programmes were being looked at with consideration of the possible new post of College Dean of PGT.

The Adam Smith Business School had requested more time to respond to issues that had been flagged in relation to the PGT dissertation student experience. The response would come to the January 2021 meeting of ASC.

As concerns regarding English language skills had been raised across AMRs for a number of years, the issue was drawn to the attention of EdPSC and discussed at its meeting on 22 October 2020. The Convener of EdPSC had agreed to raise the issue with Ms Rachel Sandison, Vice Principal, External Relations.  

This issue was also highlighted to EdPSC given the increasing number of subject areas expressing interest in the use of Mahara and the growing importance of preparing students for employment after graduation. In view of the resource implications, the Convener of EdPSC had undertaken to discuss this with Mr Dave Anderson in Information Services. In addition, the Convenor of EdPSC had agreed to flag this with Learning & Teaching Committee given the planned commitment within the forthcoming L&T Strategy to students' skills and professional development and the need for students to demonstrate their achievements after graduation. 

The Convener reported that a University-wide consultation on the operation of Good Cause had been issued and it was hoped that responses would be available for consideration at the January 2021 meeting of ASC.

In the next week a small group would be meeting to consider the scope of a forthcoming review of the Code of Assessment and degree regulations.

ASC received the reports from Annual Monitoring undertaken by the four Colleges. Arts and Science & Engineering reports covered UG and PGT provision, and MVLS and Social Sciences reports covered UG provision. In response to the exceptional circumstances created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Annual Monitoring process had been abridged to focus on key areas.

ASC/2020/17.1.1 College of Arts (UG and PG)

Dr McCarthy introduced the Arts report, highlighting themes around the success of transition to online assessment and the implementation of the No Detriment policy, though these were achieved at the cost of a huge staff workload. Staff had been reflecting carefully on the implications for future developments, and one of the issues highlighted was the importance of good and timely communications.

The Convener noted comments in the report around the temporary changes to courses and programmes that had been approved for 2020-21. In many cases the intention now was to make these changes permanent. Clarity was needed on the extent to which the full approval process had to be followed given the very high workload that this could create. Senate Office would be providing guidance on this shortly.

Action: Senate Office

ASC/2020/17.1.2 College of Medical, Veterinary & Life Sciences (UG)

Dr Rogerson introduced the MVLS report, again noting the very rapid and successful transition that had been made to online teaching and assessment, including online OSCEs. While the experience of open-book assessments had been good, there was demand from the professional areas to use timed exams at future diets. Concerns had been raised by students about the possibility of their peers cheating in online assessments. In MVLS there were particular challenges associated with face-to-face teaching of pre-clinical skills, with the need for delivery in small groups leading to sessions being repeated multiple times. There was a particular risk that the final year group of the BDS would not be able to graduate on time due to a lack of opportunities for clinical experience, with knock-on effects for later cohorts.

Other issues in the report included concerns about the complexity of degree regulations and the Code of Assessment, which had been highlighted by the calculations required by the No Detriment policy. Concerns about student mental health were prominent, as were comments regarding equality of student access to IT provision (laptops, internet connectivity). Staff had identified the need for additional digital technologist support.

ASC/2020/17.1.3 College of Science & Engineering (UG and PG)

For Science & Engineering, Dr Purchase noted that there was much to celebrate in the significant achievements of staff in the past period.

Several Schools in the College had expressed concerns around online assessment, relating to the potential for cheating and collaboration, particularly in those subject areas where MCQs were a common form of assessment.

Frustrations had been expressed around communication of some of the policy changes over the No Detriment period, particularly in relation to where responsibility for decision-making lay and late communication of some key information particularly for PGT programmes. There were concerns around a shortage of administrative staff, for example in GES where academic staff were increasingly being drawn into dealing with PG enquiries and other non-academic tasks.

ASC/2020/17.1.4 College of Social Sciences (UG)

Dr Doherty noted a wide range of activities where the staff response to the pandemic had been excellent and for which there had been positive feedback from students. Much of the report focused on a range of issues raised at programme level rather than being matters of concern across the whole College. These included assessment design and the provision of timely feedback, the reliance on part-time staff and GTAs, and the need for good technical support, difficulties with EvaSys, the accuracy of timetables, and challenges in the ethics approval process. In relation to the pandemic, the No Detriment policy had been received positively by staff and students but, as noted elsewhere, had been very demanding to implement. 

ASC/2020/17.1.5 Summary

ASC received the summary report prepared by the Senate Office. The report identified the following themes:

What worked well:

• Response of staff to the challenges of online delivery: across the University staff had responded very well to the challenges brought by the pandemic.
• Online exams: these were delivered successfully and students had adjusted and provided much positive feedback on their experience of this.
• The effect of the No Detriment Policy: feedback indicated that this had worked well resulting in student performance not being adversely affected by the pandemic.
• Staff support: various approaches had been adopted to support staff to deliver the required changes.

Themes for University attention:

• IT/remote delivery: Many concerns had been expressed in relation to the support and equipment required by staff to deliver teaching and assessment remotely. In addition many questions had been raised about the extent to which students had equal access to computer and online services and whether particular groups were disadvantaged by the move to online teaching and assessment.
• Staff workloads: The current situation had created significant additional workloads for staff. Reports referred to the freezing of key posts and the need for additional IT support posts. There were significant concerns around staff well-being both in relation to workloads and to the conditions under which they would be required to return to working on campus.
• University policies: While the effect of the No Detriment policy had broadly been welcomed, its implementation had been challenging, with some information not communicated clearly in a timely way. Implementation of the No Detriment policy had highlighted some of the complexities in the Code of Assessment and degree regulations, which were now subject to review. In connection with the move to online assessment there were a number of questions as to how this would be managed in the longer term (e.g. clarity on types of exams that would be permitted and strategies for ensuring integrity of the assessment).
• University systems: Comments had been received on ways in which the course evaluation system could be improved. In light of the shift to online assessment, comments had also been made regarding the functionality, capacity and reliability of Moodle.
• Timetabling and teaching accommodation: As in previous years, there were many problems reported.
• Student support and mental health: Concerns were widely noted regarding the numbers of students who were struggling with poor mental health and reporting insufficient support being available. This was noted to be putting additional strain on academic and support staff from whom students often sought support.
• University communications: A number of general comments were made regarding the need for clear and timely communication from the University on policy matters, with specific issues raised in connection with recruitment and admissions activities.
• In addition to the matters noted in the summary, it was agreed that the concern regarding the process and workload associated with making temporary course changes permanent in the coming session should be noted.

ASC was satisfied that the themes identified were an accurate reflection of the issues raised by the Colleges. The Senate Office would seek updates and responses from the relevant sources to these University-wide matters.

Action: Senate Office

ASC received the schedule of reviews taking place during 2020-21 and noted the allocation of members to review full reports and recommendations. As previously agreed, ASC reviewers would receive the draft reports at an earlier stage in the process and would be advised of the relevant timescales in due course. 

ASC/2020/19.2.1 School of Computing Science

ASC noted the full report of the PSR of Computing Sciences, which took place in March 2020. The full report had been approved out of committee. In reviewing the report, Ms Gow had noted three areas of potential good practice for the University. These were in relation to support for the Student Voice, the divisional management structure and Work Allocation Model, and the Graduate Apprenticeship programme. As the latter was related to specific funding, it was not clear how much potential there was for extending such provision across the University but Mr Ramsay confirmed that he would look at the possible means of promoting these items as good practice.

ASC also noted the revised format that had been used for the outcome report, following the review of the PSR process in the last session. The format of the report reflected the new areas of emphasis in the PSR process and the structure of the Reflective Analysis document submitted by the School in advance of the review meeting.

In response to discussion at the October 2020 meeting of ASC, the report template would be amended to include an additional section after the Commendations section, 'Further Issues to Note'. This would be used to identify any common or university-wide issues that were not captured in recommendations or commendations but which should be highlighted as potential themes arising from the PSR process.

ASC approved the new format of the outcome report for the forthcoming reviews.

ASC/2020/19.3.1 MVLS Graduate School

ASC received the six-month update from the review of the MVLS Graduate School Animal and Plant Sciences Cluster which took place on 14 June 2019, the update having been delayed due to the pandemic. This detailed the responses and progress made to date in implementing the 10 recommendations. ASC welcomed the full responses provided and agreed that no further updates were required. 

ASC/2020/19.3.2 School of Engineering

ASC received the six-month update from the review of the School of Engineering which took place on 7-8 March 2019, the update having been delayed due to the pandemic. This detailed the responses and progress made to date in implementing the 18 recommendations. ASC welcomed the responses, noting that the Panel convener had commended the School on the actions taken. Further updates were requested on the following:

Recommendation 3: This concerned the high student dropout rate and referred in particular to Levels 1 and 2. The response referred to analysis carried out in relation to students from Glasgow International College but not to any other groups. The recommendation required a wider response.

Recommendation 4: This recommendation required the School to work 'with the student body' in relation to promotion of the Advisory System. The response focused on actions taken with staff but did not mention work directly with the student body or student representatives.

Recommendation 7.3: This recommendation identified uncertainty concerning the extent to which GTAs were permitted to be involved in marking. The Senate Office response indicated that there had been a delay in progressing this.

A further response to these three recommendations was requested for the March 2021 meeting of ASC.

On behalf of Professor Morrison, Ms Butcher introduced the paper which summarised responses to the consultation that had been undertaken in early 2020. Progress on this matter had been delayed by the pandemic. The consultation had sought views on the way that current discretionary decisions were made, in light of the potential for unfairness arising from different approaches being applied across the University. It also sought views on the current process of aggregating overall course results to determine programme grade point average.

The majority view in responses was in favour of simplifying the decision-making in relation to degree classification on honours and postgraduate taught programmes. The paper suggested two possible options: (1) classification to be determined by GPA alone, and (2) classification to be determined by GPA and, in the lower part of the current zones of discretion, by grade profile. Professor Morrison had indicated a preference for the former.

In relation to the process of rounding to arrive at a final GPA, the responses tended to support the view that a more reliable GPA would be arrived at by rounding assessment component results rather than overall course grades. The proposal was that no further action should be taken on this matter at the current time as there was no centralised system that could manage such an amended process.

Discretion

In discussion, members concurred with the views expressed on simplifying the operation of discretion in the award of degree classifications. There was a clear view that increased transparency for students would be highly desirable as well as being administratively beneficial (reducing workload and the risk of mistakes being made). ASC agreed with the proposal that option 1 or option 2 should be adopted. This would mean that all other currently available discretionary criteria would be removed (exit velocity, unrounded mean, external examiner judgment, viva). If the use of grade profile were to be included in decision-making, there would need to be a clear explanation of how it should be applied. Members agreed that the profile should be weighted in accordance with any weighting applied to the GPA (e.g. where senior honours was weighted more heavily in calculating the GPA, this should be reflected in the way that profile was expressed). Also promotion would require 50% or more of the profile to be in the upper classification. (Requiring more than 50% to be at the higher classification could be a high hurdle where the number of courses was low.)

Given that both approved approaches would be applied uniformly across all areas of the University the term 'discretion' would no longer be appropriate and an alternative way of referring to boundary/borderline decisions would need to be agreed.

There was a lengthy discussion on whether option 1 or option 2 should be adopted. The advantage of option 1 was that it was easy to understand and very straightforward to apply. The rationale suggested in the paper was that a student with a GPA of 17.5 had 'on average demonstrated performance at the level of a First class'. However, as the 22-point scale was not a linear scale, some members felt that this was an unsatisfactory approach and that grade profile gave a more complete representation of a student's performance. It was noted that by agreeing to adopt option 2, all students whose GPA was at .5 or above would be promoted, and this would avoid the current situation where it was possible to have an undergraduate student with a GPA of, say, 17.3 promoted on the basis of grade profile while a student with a GPA of 17.9 without the required grade profile would remain as a 2.1.

The Committee favoured option 2. It was noted that Professor Morrison had not had the opportunity to present a case for option 1 in answer to the points made in discussion. Given that there was no immediate time pressure to make a final decision, this could be deferred until the January meeting where Professor Morrison could present her views in person.

It was also noted that this decision would have an impact on the degree classification outcomes for the University as a whole, which was significant in terms of various published metrics. Professor Gray commented that modelling undertaken in Life Sciences indicated that option 2 was unlikely to have a significant overall impact on outcomes. It was agreed that it would be helpful to carry out some modelling of the impacts of the two suggested options in time for the January meeting. Professor Alexander and Dr Purchase also offered to carry out some analysis of results in their areas using results from 2018-19.

It was noted that moving to a situation where 17.5 would effectively become the new threshold for the award of a First class degree/PGT degree with Distinction called into question the way that non-discretionary thresholds should be applied. For example, the GPA required for the award of a third class honours degree would, in effect, move from 9.0 to 8.5, whereas the GPA required for an ordinary/designated degree (where there was no discretionary zone) would remain at 9.0. Similarly, on PGT programmes, the required taught courses GPA was not currently subject to discretion so would remain at 12.0. In view of the desire to simplify and harmonise degree regulations, such inconsistency was undesirable. ASC members agreed with this principle. This would be looked at in further detail in due course.

Rounding

ASC agreed with the proposal that no action should be taken at present to change the way that final GPAs were calculated. In the absence of a centralised system that could support a significant shift in policy in this area, the risks and potential costs in terms of staff workload were too great.

ASC received the audit report on programme approval activity carried out during 2019-20. Auditing showed that, in the main, approval processes were followed and appropriate information was uploaded to PIP. However, the following points were noted:

• Documents uploaded to PIP should show how queries raised through consultations or by the Board of Studies were responded to, and that in light of such responses the Board of Studies had given final approval to the proposal.
• Where programme amendments were being made, consultations should explicitly refer to the proposed changes rather than just asking for comments on the programme as a whole. (Review of the consultation templates may assist with this.)
• Processing of programme withdrawals in PIP should be timely.

Feedback on these points, together with issues arising from specific audited proposals, would be fed back to the Colleges.

Action: Senate Office

ASC received a paper from SRUC outlining a proposal to continue delivering the top-up version of the BA (Hons) Rural Business Management programme from its Ayr campus whilst offering other versions of the programme from the SRUC Barony campus, Dumfries. While SRUC was in the process of moving most provision within the Faculty from Ayr, the top-up degree serviced a local need with most students coming from local colleges and unlikely to be able to study at another SRUC campus. This position would remain under review depending on other developments in relation to the Ayr campus.

ASC approved the proposal.

ASC received the report of the Joint Liaison Committee meeting held on 11 February 2020 and approved the remit, composition and membership of the Committee for 2020-21. The list of staff recognised by GSA as Associate University Lecturers was also noted.

The remainder of the report was noted. At section 4 (viii) it was also noted that views were being sought on whether the University should always be represented on GSA PGR Periodic Review panels. ASC's view was that the University should be represented. This would be fed back to the Academic Collaborations Office.

Action: Clerk

The full reports from the PSRs of Sociology and Theology & Religious Studies were noted, these having been approved under Summer Powers subject to minor comments that had now been addressed. 

ASC received the College's audit report and noted that the proportion of proposals being audited was small: four audited from each of the new courses (total 176), amended courses (total 381) and withdrawn courses (total 145). It was agreed that additional guidance would be useful to ensure that auditing was adequate. This could include a minimum number/percentage of proposals as well as a requirement that at least one proposal from each School/RI was audited.

Action: Senate Office