Portsmouth uni part time grading

I am in a distant learning course at Portsmouth,

4.5 years with last year focused on dissertation only, how does grading work does first year count ?

Reply 1

DataVenia

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by Anonymous

I am in a distant learning course at Portsmouth,

4.5 years with last year focused on dissertation only, how does grading work does first year count ?

Can you confirm that you're referring to an undergraduate degree? (The 4.5 years part-time would suggest so, but the term "dissertation" is more normally associated with postgraduate qualifications.)

University of Portsmouth

Portsmouth

Reply 2

Anonymous #1

Original post by DataVenia

Can you confirm that you're referring to an undergraduate degree? (The 4.5 years part-time would suggest so, but the term "dissertation" is more normally associated with postgraduate qualifications.)

yes undergrad

Reply 3

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by Anonymous

yes undergrad

Usually the same regulations would apply to part-time and full-time study in terms of classification and grading, you just take the course over a different number of years. However in any event your programme regulations will spell out very explicitly which credits from what part of the course count towards your final classification, and how those credits are graded.

It's possibly more helpful to think of your degree in terms of "stages" than years - stage 1 being the first year of full time study, which you would study over however many years, stage 2 being equivalent to the second year of full time study done over however many years etc. Each stage will have a specific number of credits associated with it (120 normally) and these may or may not be specified to be specific compulsory modules or not.

Reply 4

DataVenia

Volunteer Team, Clearing and Applications Advisor

Original post by Anonymous

yes undergrad

OK. Thanks. Then Year 1 doesn't count towards your final degree classification, which is determined by whichever of these produces the highest classification:

a) the classification of the weighted mean of all relevant credits at Level 5 and all relevant credits at Level 6 in the ratio of 40:60 respectively after first discounting the marks in the worst 20 credits both at Level 5 and at Level 6;
b) the classification of the weighted mean of all relevant credits at Level 6 after first discounting the marks in the worst 20 credits at Level 6;
c) the minimum classification in which more than 50% of the combined relevant credits at Level 5 and Level 6 were attained after first discounting the marks in the worst 20 credits both at Level 5 and at Level 6.

(The above comes from paragraph 9.8.4 in Portsmouth's Examination & Assessment Regulations, September 2022.

You will note the repeated references to Level 5 and Level 6 above. For a full-time 3-year undergraduate degree, it's almost always the case that Years 1, 2 and 3 equate to Levels 4, 5, and 6 respectively. This makes things nice and simple.

For the part-time 4.5-year undergraduate degrees at Portsmouth, they split the levels across the years as follows:

• Year 1: 80 credits at Level 4
• Year 2: 40 credits at Level 4 + 40 credits at Level 5
• Year 3: 80 credits at Level 5
• Year 4: 80 credits at Level 6
• Year 5: 40 credits at Level 6

If you total those up, you'll note it's 120 credits at Level 4, 120 credits at Level 5 and 120 credits at Level 6 - exactly the same as a full-time 3-year undergraduate degree. You will also note that Year 1 entirely consists of Level 4 credits, which don't contribute to your final degree classification.