Assessment results: news
OCA is making an important change to the communication of assessment results. Its good news: you will get your provisional marks from assessment earlier than previously. In agreement with the OCA student association (OCASA), provisional results from the next assessment event (which runs at OCA from 6th to 22nd November), will be published online, on the OCA student website, by the end of the day on 26th November. This will include your student number, the name of the course, and your result. If you have indicated on your assessment form that you don’t want your student number to appear on the list, your mark will still appear, but with no student number associated with it. This will be followed by a letter in the post which will confirm your provisional mark and also contain comments and advice for future study from the assessors. You will receive this letter within a month of the end of the assessment. 
Please note that all assessment results are provisional until confirmed by the University for the Creative Arts exam board. The Exam Board for the November assessment is on 7th December 2012. We will be publishing provisional results of the March and July (2013) assessments immediately after those events, in a similar way, but please note that there will only be one Exam Board to take account of both the March and July assessment events in 2013, on 25th July. This means that marks from the March and July events will remain provisional until 25 July 2013.
OCA is keeping an eye on the increasing number of assessment submissions, and will be looking at the the number of assessment events we have in 2014 (there are currently three for undergraduates each year).
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All assessment results are provisional until confirmed by the University for the Creative Arts exam board.Does this mean that the mark / result could change after the University as looked at the assigment?
Anything that puts us out of our misery sooner has to be good news! Thanks all for making this change.
The one thing that gave me pause was the possibility of a downward revision following moderation (I don’t mean just a mark or two but an actual grade change). Presumably you’ve decided that this is so unlikely that it is safe to publish the provisional marks?
I also wonder if the comment about the number of assessment events means you’re thinking of having fewer events or more?
Hello Yvonne and Eileen
Publishing the provisional marks is normal process for HE, and that is because it is rare for marks to change at exam board meetings (which do not look at the original work, just confirm the process). There is the possibility of a downward or upward revision at an exam board however, but both are unlikely, and downward revision even more unlikely.
On the other matter, we are likely to need more assessment events in the future, not fewer. This will extend the range of times available for assessment, but is not likely to happen for a year or two.
Jane,
Thanks very much for the quick response. I had hoped that those were the answers but wanted to check.
Thats a great change, thank you! I’ve wondered how I would know if I were able/ready to move from level 1 to 2. I thought I had to either buy the level 2 course and hope I pass, or wait months upon months for the level 1 result. Also, the extra assessment events would be great because we students finish all over the place throughout the year and again, we don’t like having to wait 1/3 of a year to even have it assessed, let alone receive the result.
Nice to know the provisional results sooner and more assessment events would be very useful. I always find myself rushing because otherwise I’d have to wait months for the next assessment.
Great, good news to be able to get the results sooner rather than later.
Great news. My approach has been to cross my fingers and hope that I have been successful at a particular level and purchased the next Course material. In fairness it is reasonably easy to make a judgment based on the responses from your tutor as to your likely success and recent changes in the advice given by Tutors have made this even easier.
An increase in the number of assessments in any one year needs to be introduced as soon as possible. It is frustrating to have to go into ‘coast’ mode because of the need to wait for the next assessment month.
If we can get rid of the limit on the number of credits in any one year (120) then planning for a degree would be so much easier. There is something odd about stressing that one of the delights of distance learning is that the student can progress at his/her own pace and then introduce conditions that make that impossible. O.K. I am lucky because I am retired so can spend as much or as little time as I like on the Course material but it should not be beyond the wit of man to assess whether I am actually putting in the time required simply by the quality or lack thereof of my submissions.
One has to remember that a full time student will not be studying more than 120 credits in one year so the restriction is reasonable in that it is not possible to give the required level of commitment to the work if more is attempted. 120 credits require (in my view a minimum of) 1200 hours study directly associated with the modules and, by implication, rather more in associated activities, exhibition visits, reading around the subject, doing one’s own (art)work, etc. etc. Although it might be possible for someone to do more than this it would not be advisable and might encourage a less than full engagement with the subject.
To save getting out your calculators, 1200 hours represents over 23 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. 🙂