Academic Appeals

All results are provisional until they have been confirmed by an Examining Board. Examining Boards usually meet later in the year, around May/June and then August/September for re-sits. The Appeals Procedure only allows you to appeal a result that has been confirmed by an Examining Board. The confirmed results should be confirmed to you in an official results transcript, usually by email and made available on the Transcripts section of your SIMS account.

You can submit an Academic Appeal within 28 days of receiving your Official Results Transcript. Official Results Transcripts are normally released in June/July, usually by email and made available on the Transcripts section of your SIMS account.

Too early to appeal: If you receive a result in the January assessment period, or indeed any time before the Examining Board have met, and you are not happy, you will need to wait until much later in the year before you can submit an appeal. If you click on the ‘manage/submit an appeal’ tab on your SIMS account, and you have not yet received your formal results, you will see that a message comes up explaining this. If this applies to you, we strongly advise to keep any evidence of grounds for appeal safe so that you can use it to support an appeal later on.

Importantly, if you are considering an appeal on the grounds of Extenuating Circumstances and you have not yet reported any, we strongly advise to try reporting immediately and see what your School say. They may reject your circumstances but, the longer you wait to submit, the longer you will need to provide very good reason for waiting. If and when you appeal.

Too late to appeal: If you miss the 28 day window, you can still submit an Academic Appeal, but you will have to contact Student Cases and provide a very good reason as to why you missed the initial deadline. If the reason for lateness is not deemed good enough, your appeal will be rejected. Please refer to the Late Appeals section on our Appeal Process webpage for how to submit a late appeal.

If you are too early or too late to appeal and need further advice on this point, please contact Student Advice.

Cardiff University’s Academic Regulations very clearly state that students cannot challenge academic judgement. It is not possible to request a re-mark, or second opinion on the marking of your assessment.

If you believe there has been an arithmetical error, or error of fact, in calculating your mark, you can ask for your mark to be checked. You can contact your School informally first and discuss the issue with them. If the School do not resolve are unable to resolve this informally, you can submit a ground one appeal to have the calculations or facts checked.

There is no policy within Cardiff University’s Academic Regulations that allows students to challenge academic judgement. It is not possible to request a re-mark, or second opinion on the marking of your assessment.

If you have evidence to suggest that you have experienced an irregularity in the conduct, guidance and/or feedback relating to the assessment, which may have misled you to attain a low mark, then you may be able to make an appeal-complaint.

If you have failed an assessment you may be required to re-sit in order to progress to the next level of study.

If the assessment that you have failed took place before the 16th March 2020 it will be capped at the pass-mark.

This may not be the case if you submitted extenuating circumstances for the assessment in question, which granted you an assessment remedy. If you are unsure that this remedy has been applied to your assessment, we would advise you to refer back to the extenuating circumstances correspondence you received from your School, or to contact your School for clarification.

If you have had extenuating circumstances relating to a protected characteristic accepted, you may have been offered a resit for a passed assessment. If this is the case, you may be given an opportunity to resit, with a view to improving your passed mark.

If the failed assessment took place after the 16th March 2020, the Safety Net Policy may apply. In which case, you will be permitted a further attempt but the attempt number for the resit will remain unchanged i.e. if you have failed an module at the first attempt, the resit attempt number will remain at attempt one and the resit mark will not be capped at the minimum pass mark.

If this is your second attempt at the module, the resit attempt number will remain at attempt two but the mark will remain capped at the pass mark.

If you are an Undergraduate, and have failed your second attempt at the module after the 16th March 2020, the resit number will remain at attempt two and the mark will remain capped at the pass mark.

If your first two attempts at this assessment took place before 16th March 2020, this may be considered your third and final attempt at the module, unless you are granted an examining board remedy through the Extenuating Circumstances Procedure. If you fail your final attempt at the module, you may be withdrawn from your course.

If you are a Postgraduate and have failed your first attempt at the module after the 16th March 2020, the resit number will remain at attempt one and the mark will remain uncapped.

If your first attempt at this assessment took place before 16th March 2020, this may be considered your second and final attempt at the module, unless you are granted an examining board remedy through the Extenuating Circumstances Procedure. If you fail your final attempt at the module, you may be withdrawn from your course.

You can submit an Academic Appeal for assessments that took place in a previous academic year, however this will be considered as a late appeal as it should have been appealed within 28 days of receiving your official transcript in that academic year. We would advise you to make a late appeal at your earliest possibility.

A late appeal needs to be submitted in writing to your Head of Student Cases. In your correspondence, you will need to include why it was not possible or reasonable for you to submit an appeal within the time limit. You will need to provide evidence to support your explanation.

The Academic Regulations state that the appeals procedure can take around 90 days.

The appeals procedure usually takes around 90 days from the date that you submit your appeal.

If you submit an appeal under ground one, the appeal outcome is usually released sooner than the specified time frame.

If you are in your final year of study and you have failed an assessment, you will not be able to graduate until you have successfully completed an appropriate number of credits. If you submit an appeal under grounds two or three, it is likely that you will still have to resit the assessment in question before you able to graduate. This assessment will be retrospectively uncapped pending the outcome of a successful appeal.

If you due to graduate and you are appealing a passed grade with a view to having a credits discounted, it is likely that you will still graduate. However, your degree classification may change pending the outcome of your appeal, and an updated degree certificate will be sent to you.

According to the 19/20 Academic Appeals Procedure you cannot request for individual appeals to be expedited.

If you wanted to, you can appeal all the assessments on your transcript. However, you can only submit an Academic Appeal under the specific grounds outlined in the Academic Appeals procedure. If your appeal does not fall under these grounds it may not be considered by the University. If you believe that you have an appropriate reason to appeal, but it does not coincide with any of the specified grounds, we suggest that you speak to one of our advisers.

You can also submit an academic appeal for assessments or module results that you received in previous academic years, but this would be considered a late appeal. When submitting a late appeal, you need to provide a very good reason as to why you missed the original deadline.

The Academic Appeals process has been designed to allow student to challenge their marks under specified grounds. We understand that you may be reluctant to express dissatisfaction with your experience in case it has repercussions on your future assessments.

As a student at Cardiff University you are a consumer of a service. It is important that you are able to appeal a result that you are not happy with, and you should not be in receipt of prejudice or discrimination for doing so.

If you believe that you are being treated unfavourably as a result of an appeal, you may want to engage with the University Complaints Procedure.

Using the Academic Appeals procedure you can request purely academic remedies. This can include:

• For Ground 1 Appeals: the error should be amended and any decision on progression or award should be revised accordingly.
• For Ground 2 Appeals: the University can discount assessment marks where there is a defect or irregularity found. They may also be able to offer you the chance to redo the assessment for a higher mark.
• For Ground 3 Appeals: if your extenuating circumstances are accepted, your case will be referred back to a reconvened Examining Board who can:
• Disregard any failed attempts and allow you another first/second/third attempt (depending on which you were on>.
• Discount marks for assessments that you have passed when calculating your classification. For 2019/20, this rule only applies to extenuating circumstances before 19th March 2020 - unless your circumstances relate to a protected characteristic.
• If your circumstances relate to a prtected characteristic, the Board can also offer you the opportunity to re-sit assessments you have already passed, with a view to improving your mark.
• The Examining Board cannot increase your marks as a result of your extenuating circumstances.

You cannot get a political or financial remedy from the Appeals procedure. If you are seeking a remedy that is not outlined above, it may appropriate for you to engage with the University Complaints Procedure in addition to, or instead of, the Academic Appeals Procedure.

No. If you are seeking a financial remedy it may appropriate for you to engage with the University Complaints Procedure in addition to, or instead of, the Academic Appeals Procedure.

No. The Appeals procedure is available for all students of Cardiff University that are unhappy with their University results. You do not need to pay to submit an academic appeal.

If, as a result of your appeal, you are given the opportunity to resit an assessment in the next academic year, this may incur additional fees. The Money and Funding Advice Team may be able to advise you if this is the case.

Additionally, if you want further professional, legal advice to support your appeal, you may be able to pay an independent provider but this is not a necessary requirement of the Academic Appeals procedure.

You do not incur additional costs as a result of resitting an assessment in the August resit period.

If, as a result of your appeal, you are given the opportunity to resit an assessment in the next academic year, this may incur additional fees. Tuition fees may vary depending on whether you sit the year as an internal or external student.

The Money and Funding Advice Team may be able to advise you if this is the case

Unfortunately, Student Advice does not offer an appeal writing or checking service.

We provide a range of resources, including a series of detailed webpages, info-videos on appeals, and a tool to help you write and structure your appeal effectively.

If you feel that you are unable to write an effective appeal owing to an English Language barrier, you made need to seek professional, legal support. Please note, all appeals need to be submitted in English or Welsh.

Student Advice had generated this Appeals Generator to assist students with writing their appeals.

The online form will ask you for all the details needed for an appeal, and will then send you an email with a word document attachment that contains a draft appeal. This tool is designed to support the appeal-writing process, but it should not be assumed that your appeal will be automatically approved because of this. You should first look at the Writing Your Appeal webpages.

Protected Characteristics are categories defined by the Equality Act 2010. If your appeal related to circumstances that have been affected by a Protected Characteristic you may be eligible for additional support or remedies.

If you believe your studies have been effected by extenuating circumstances relating to a protected characteristic we would advise you to mention this in your appeal.

You must usually provide evidence to support everything you say in your appeal. Evidence should ideally be independent and support all elements of your argument.

It is your responsibility to provide all the evidence and information that you want to be considered at the time that you submit your appeal.

The University will not contact third parties (e.g. doctors, tutors, police, School or University departments) to obtain this evidence for you.

If you are stating that your circumstances and your appeal related to a Protected Characteristic, it is important that you provide evidence of this too.

If you are unable to present evidence with your appeal, you should detail why the evidence has not been included and indicate when it will be provided. The Head of Student Cases will consider if it is appropriate to allow you additional time to provide the evidence.

If your appeal is rejected, you can request a review of this decision using the University’s Review Procedure.

You have 14 days from receiving the decision of your Academic Appeal in which to apply for a review. We would strongly advise you to be proactive in engaging with this procedure so that you do not miss the deadline.

If your application for a review is rejected, and you feel that this is unreasonable given the detail, evidence and circumstances of your appeal, you may be able to appeal through the OIA (Office of the Independent Adjudicator). If this is a course of action that you need to pursue please contact an adviser.