UCL awards hundreds of wrong marks, wrong degrees, wrongly fails students — yet the QAA gives a clean bill of health

If UCL knew something was wrong in 2011 then why wasn’t it until 2013 their Academic Committee decided to investigate? That’s a long time to ignore such a serious problem, especially in a clinical discipline.

The UCL spokesperson didn’t explain why it has taken so long to take action. The whistleblower to THE accused university authorities of “dragging their feet”, which seems to be self evident and also a bit of an understatement.

Q: Why did UCL wait two years (after concerns were raised) to even start to investigate?

Following an internal review/committee meeting in 2013, UCL started an internal review/audit/investigation. Going from what the spokesperson said to THE, this was supposed to work out which students have been affected and how badly. According to UCL, that process is still ongoing in 2016.

Q: Why has it taken over three years for UCL to check and correct students’ marks and why haven’t they finished yet?

Q: Who/what agency is investigating students’ marks and qualifications?

If you’re going to check if a student has been awarded the right mark then you have compare that against the mark they were given when the work was marked (that’s usually whatever was written on their coursework coversheet or exam). That’s only possible if the original marked work (or related documents) still exists — either in storage or requested back from the students.

Under UCL’s Retention Schedule, they get rid of a students’ work after a year. Have they done that or have they kept it to check against? Most students don’t keep their coversheets/feedback for very long, so if UCL needed to collect these back in to check against then they’d have to write to the students pretty quickly. Did they?

Q: Has UCL destroyed the marked work or coversheets of any students who may have been given incorrect marks?

Q: Has UCL contacted students possibly affected to ask them to return their marked work or coversheets?

In the THE article, UCL seemed to imply that they were only looking at the marks of students on one programme in the dental school — MSc Restorative Dental Practice. However, the school also runs a large number of other programmes. Surely they’d want to make sure those students weren’t also affected — even if just to be safe?

Q: Why is UCL only reviewing the marks on one degree programme when the dental school runs a large number of others?

Q: Have any errors been found on any other programmes at the dental school?

The issue of scope doesn’t stop there. The Eastman Dental Institute is only one department of the Faculty of Medical Sciences. The others include: UCL Medical School, Division of Medicine, Cancer Institute, Division of Infection and Immunity, and Division of Surgery and Interventional Science.

All of those departments report to a Faculty Board of Examiners, which is responsible for approving marks and overseeing the standards in those departments. If the Faculty didn’t notice that large numbers of students were being given the wrong marks and degrees for years at its dental school, then without thorough investigation how can there be any confidence that the same isn’t true in its other departments?

Q: Has UCL ruled out errors in other departments of the Faculty of Medical Sciences? What work has actually been done to establish this?

The UCL spokesperson stated that the audit would look at students “whose final degree award was affected by the mistakes”. My reading of that is unless a student’s overall degree is affected they won’t have their marks corrected? If that’s the case then it’s deeply wrong since students don’t just walk away with a degree — they also receive a Transcript (or a Higher Education Achievement Report) that lists all of their individual marks. I’ve just had to provide mine for a job application. Others will do too — and more so in the future. This is also used when applying for further education, funding opportunities, visa applications, credit transfer to other degrees, and more. These things matter.

Q: Why isn’t UCL investigating and correcting marks for all students who are potentially affected and affected, not just those whose final award is incorrect?

Academic records have to be accurate if they’re to be reliable and useful. The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) — Principle 4, says that records “shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date”, seems like it would apply. If UCL isn’t going to investigate and correct all marks for all students, then it is surely in breach of the Act and should be held accountable?

If you work or study at UCL, you can make a report to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Q: Why hasn’t UCL, as a Data Controller, reported itself to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)?

If you’re a student or alumni and you want to find out if you’re affected then the UK’s information laws can help. Under the DPA, you can submit a Subject Access Request to UCL to get hold of any and all documents relating to you or your marks: emails, spreadsheets, databases, coversheets, Board of Examiners minutes, etc. You’ll need to fill in a ‘Form 6’ and submit this to the Data Protection Officer.

If provided, it should be possible to work out whether you were given the mark you earned or something different — i.e. were your marks mishandled when moving from one spreadsheet to the next.

The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) is the body responsible for standards in UK higher education. They use a risk-based approach so that high risk providers are reviewed more frequently that low-risk. This is based on factors such as track record and maturity in the sector. The rationale for this approach, according to the 2011 Whitepaper, is to allow the QAA to focus where it will have the most impact, and to give students power to hold universities to account. Let that last bit sink in for a moment.

There are triggers than can cause the QAA to review outside of it’s normal cycle. For example, if concerns are raised through the QAA’s Concerns Scheme or if there’s a cluster of complaints to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. This is well and good, but for students to make a complaint they have to be aware of the issue and in posession of evidence — which UCL hasn’t provided them with.

UCL has been tight lipped. Students weren’t told they may have the wrong marks and qualifications or even that any concerns existed. This effectively robbed them of their opportunity to start an internal appeal — which they would have to have done within 28 days of the date of notification of their results.

Similarly, UCL didn’t seem to disclose this to the QAA, who have just finished their Higher Education Review (HER) of UCL. As part of that process, UCL submitted a Self Evaluation Document where they give an assessment of how they’ve done quality wise (you need a UCL link or someone to share it with you). In that, they make no mention of students being given the wrong marks, wrong degrees or being wrongly failed.

Not significant enough to mention I guess?

This is a bit dry, but the QAA’s HER report on UCL found that “effective regulations and processes exist in respect of the award of credit and maintenance of academic standards, which are implemented appropriately. The team concludes that the Expectation is met and the level of risk is low”. The report also states “UCL has … reliable processes for assessment that allow students to demonstrate the extent to which they achieve the learning outcomes”. Sounds good. No worries here then.

How can those things be true when students were given hundreds of wrong marks over almost a decade? When students were given thre wrong awards? Told they’d failed when they hadn’t? How can it be true when the university hasn’t managed to fix it in the reported 5 years it’s been aware of problems? How on earth does this constitute “Expectations Met”?

Q: Why didn’t the QAA pick up on the fact that UCL was awarding of incorrect marks and qualifications to students for years? What will it do now it’s aware?