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Undergraduate Progression and Awards

 

The regulations governing undergraduate progression and awards are shared across all programmes and have applied to all undergraduate students on all programmes from 2018/19.

Note: Some derogations have been approved by University Council. These exceptions will be communicated to students directly from their programmes of study.

Student queries relating to Progression and Awards regulations should be directed to the relevant programme office. Queries from academic and professional colleagues and those seeking additional information should be made to Academic.Affairs@tcd.ie

Council-approved Progression Regulations

- Regulation 1: Standardisation of Progression Regulations

  • Progression regulations should be standardised. Some variation may be appropriate to accommodate requirements from external professional and accrediting bodies.

- Regulation 2: Annual Progression

  • Progression will be on an annual basis.

  • Students will be permitted to carry failed modules from semester to semester but not from year to year.

  • Students will receive provisional results after Semester 1 assessment.

  • Courts of Examiners will convene after semester 2 and consider the results from both semesters.

- Regulation 3: Progression Threshold

  • All undergraduate programmes will be required to provide clear grade descriptors representing a pass.
  • Progression threshold will not be higher than the pass mark in 4-year UG programmes.
  • There should be a standardised pass mark as far as possible across all UG programmes.

- Regulation 4: Minimum Credits to pass a year

  • There should be a balanced credit-load across semesters.
  • All modules and components of modules will be compensatable.
  • The number of credits to pass a year will be 60.
  • 10 ECTS may be accumulated at ‘Qualified Pass’ (i.e. marks between 35-39% where the pass mark is 40% or 45-49% where the pass mark is 50% for some professionally accredited courses).
  • If a student has achieved both Fail and Qualified Pass grades in modules completed in semester 1 and semester 2, they will be required to present for reassessment in all failed components in all modules for which they obtained either a fail grade or Qualified Pass. The reassessment session usually occurs at the end of August to coincide with the start of Semester 1 of the next academic year.
  • There is no aggregation.

- Regulation 5: Degree Award Calculations

  • Students entering programmes with the new architecture will have their degree award calculated on their final two years’ results, weighted at 30% and 70% respectively.
  • This regulation will apply only to new entrants to the new programme architecture in 2018-19 (i.e. students entering in 2018 to study Science Engineering, Engineering with Management, Clinical Speech and Language Studies, Clinical programmes) and 2019-20 (i.e. students entering all other programmes in September 2019).
  • Current award calculations will apply for students who are entering existing programmes in 2017 and 2018 and for continuing students.

- Regulation 6: Number of years to complete a degree

  • No change from existing practice. The maximum number of years to complete an undergraduate degree will be 6 for a 4-year programme and 7 for a 5-year programme.

- Regulation 7: Repetition of a year

  • Students are not permitted to repeat any academic year more than once and may not repeat more than two academic years within a programme.

  • Repetition of a year is in full, i.e., all modules and all assessment components**.

  • A student’s academic record on their transcript will show clearly the time lost through repetition of a year.

  • There will be an option to repeat a year on an ‘off-books’ basis.

- Regulation 8: Reassessment

  • Same progression regulations, including compensation, for assessments relating to semesters 1 & 2 and to reassessment.

  • Automatic right to reassessment for a student who has achieved a fail grade in any of their modules and is not eligible for compensation.

  • Students are not permitted to present for reassessment in any module for which they have achieved a pass grade, in order to improve their academic performance.

  • Rescheduled exams within the session will no longer be permitted.
  • Different reassessment modalities permitted.
  • No capping of marks.

- Regulation 9: Special Examinations

  • Special Examinations will no longer be available from 2018/19.