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July 2025 Bulletin

1 July 2025
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  1. Common Awards Team
  2. Upcoming Dates and Deadlines
  3. Durham University Board of Examiners (Overarching)
  4. Conversion of Marks
  5. Complaints and Appeals: Procedural Updates for TEIs
  6. Common Awards Student Survey
  7. ZendTo file sharing software
  8. Common Awards Webinar Video
  9. 2025/26 Calendar

1. Common Awards Team

Please note that the Common Awards administrative team may be less responsive than usual from 3rd July – 9th July. During this period members of the team will be involved in marshalling at the University congregation ceremonies.  The Durham Theological Educator’s Conference will also run from 16th-18th July. Please bear with us and we will respond to queries as soon as we are able to.

2. Upcoming Dates and Deadlines

16th - 18th July - The Annual Conference for Theological Educators

1st August - Deadline: TEIs to submit Common Awards Management Committee membership lists and quoracy arrangements, as well as dates for upcoming CAMCs

1st August - Deadline: TEIs to submit T9 (Staffing List) for 2024/25 academic year

1st August - Deadline: TEIs to submit Common Awards policies, to include the following:

  • Admissions
  • Accreditation of Prior Learning
  • Academic Progress Notice
  • Academic Misconduct
  • Complaints and Appeals
  • Overlength work
  • Placements
  • Research Ethics (and misconduct)

3. Board of Examiners (Overarching)

In preparation for upcoming TEI Boards of Examiners meetings, please see below for the list of documentation/data reports required by the University following each Board:

  • confirmed module marks for completing students registered on Common Awards programmes (see our guidance on submitting module marks) within 48 hours - report V4 DU - Marks List - 48hr in Moodle;
  • Moodle marksheets for students recommended to the Overarching Board of Examiners within 48 hours;
  • outcomes of the scrutiny of SACs applications (see our guidance on SACs on the website for more information);
  • minutes of TEI Boards of Examiners within 2 weeks of the date of the meeting - please use the agenda and minutes templates Templates and Forms page.  

Confirmed module marks for continuing students (Moodle report V4 January marks ALL Boards) should be returned in January 2026, following all TEI Boards.

4. Conversion of Marks

The Common Awards Management Board recently approved a new policy for the marking of summative assessments that don’t use a standard Common Awards assessment criteria grid. This includes any assessments which use quantitative marking – e.g., where the mark given is simply a count of the number of correct answers in a test – which can include for example biblical languages tests or multiple choice tests. Such marking does not directly refer to the qualitative descriptors in Common Awards assessment criteria grids.

This policy has been developed following a request from the Common Awards External Moderator to ensure a consistency in approach to these kinds of assessment.

The new policy requires any TEI which marks any piece of summative assessment other than by using one of the standard Common Awards assessment criteria grids to offer a statement of how the TEI believes this would yield an appropriate overall mark – that is, how the TEI ensures that the mark ultimately given for the work will be comparable to the qualitative descriptors found in the assessment criteria grids.  This statement should be shared with the Common Awards Team and would be available to the TEI’s external examiner, ensuring transparency concerning the approach being taken.  Equally importantly, the need for a statement will ensure that the relevant tutors have carefully thought through the issues.

The new policy also requires that when conversion is going to be applied to marks – i.e., when the quantitative marks from a test are converted into different marks that sit in the relevant qualitative bands – students should be informed about this in advance.  It is important that there is transparency with students over the assessment processes that are being applied to their work.

The full details of the policy can be found here, and should be read in conjunction with the policy on converting test scores into marks.

5. Complaints and Appeals: Procedural Updates for TEIs

Earlier this academic year, the Common Awards Management Board reviewed and approved revised versions of the Common Awards Student Complaints and Appeals procedures.

TEIs are reminded of the request to take following actions, as outlined in the recently circulated email:

Academic Appeals

Please ensure any links which point to the University policy within your student handbooks are updated, and that staff and students are aware of where to find the updated procedures:

Staff-facing Complaints and Appeals page

Full Academic Appeals procedure

Student guidance on Academic Appeals (this also includes links to the Stage 1 and Stage 2 Appeals proformas students can download)

Academic Complaints

Please ensure any links which point to the University policy within your student handbooks are updated, and that staff and students are aware of where to find the updated procedures:

Staff-facing Complaints and Appeals page

Full Academic Complaints procedure (this includes a link to a template TEI Complaints proforma TEIs can adapt for their students)

Student guidance on Academic Complaints (this includes a link to the Stage 3 Complaints Review proforma students can use)

TEI Complaints Policy Template

Following the recent consultation on the proposed TEI Complaints Policy Template, the template has been finalised and added to the Templates and Forms section of the Common Awards website. Please see below clarifications following the feedback received from TEIs:

  • There is no problem with TEIs ensuring that the terminology is altered to reflect local nomenclature and structures (e.g., ‘Board of Trustees’, ‘Program Director’, and so on).
  • This only covers academic appeals and complaints, the processes overseen by Durham under the validation contract.
  • The template mentions the need for staff involved in complaints processes to be 'appropriately inducted, trained, and supported’. At present there is no central training provided by the Common Awards team. The training envisaged is therefore likely to be internal to each TEI: a matter of ensuring that everyone involved is clear about the policy and processes involved, and especially aware of the ‘Principles’ involved.
  • The need for complaints to be investigated ‘independently’ means that the staff involved should not be themselves amongst those being complained against (directly or indirectly). It need not mean that people external to the TEI are involved, though TEIs should use their judgment about where that might be necessary for a student to get a fair hearing.

 6. Common Awards Student Survey 2025

We are pleased to report that the overall satisfaction rate for Common Awards students remains very high, with 94.67% of students agreeing that they are satisfied with the quality of their course.  Raw survey data has been shared with TEIs, and further analysis will follow this month.

7. ZendTo file sharing software

TEIs are reminded that ZendTo (the University’s file sharing software) is available to facilitate file sharing with the Common Awards Team. This is particularly useful for file types that cannot be password-protected, such as HTML files.

To use ZendTo visit https://zendto.dur.ac.uk/, select Drop Off and follow the instructions to send files to the Common Awards Team. Files can be encrypted within ZendTo with your usual password for added security.

Please do contact the Team if you have any questions.

8. Common Awards Webinar Video

We are pleased to announce that a recording of a recent webinar is now available online:

Making 'Reasonable Adjustments' for Disabled Students (04 June 2025)

https://youtu.be/98Vv_UQYzDM

This webinar was a chance for TEI staff to learn more about ‘reasonable adjustments’, exploring how our teaching, assessment, and student support can be adapted to provide a better experience for disabled students. Dr Campbell is the author of Supporting Disabled Students in Higher Education: The Reasonable Adjustments Handbook (Routledge, 2023), an excellent guide to creative and practical responses to the needs of students with a wide range of disabilities. The webinar will provide an opportunity to hear about his work, and then to discuss with him how it might apply in the TEI context.

9. 2025/26 Calendar

The Common Awards calendar for the academic year 2025/26 is now available here.

With thanks,

The Common Awards Team