News on the Burgess Report

Change by degree

Student grades are to be reformed. But has the new system already been watered down? Polly Curtis reports

Tuesday October 16, 2007
The Guardian

Firsts, upper seconds, lower seconds and thirds have been part of the academic landscape in the UK for 200 years. Bob Burgess, the vice-chancellor of Leicester University, has spent three years examining how degrees are classified. When he issued interim reports declaring the current system "not fit for purpose", he triggered reports of a death sentence.

Today, the system gets a reprieve. His final 76-page report suggests the present classifications should remain, but a new Higher Education Achievement Report (Hear), will be issued alongside them, giving the "fine-grained" details of a student's learning: what they studied and how it was assessed. It is hoped this will be in place in all UK higher education institutions by 2010. Link

Graduates to get details of marks

• Current degree system not fit for purpose, report says
  
• Universities resist move to scrap existing grades

Polly Curtis, education editor
Tuesday October 16, 2007
The Guardian

Students will be given a detailed breakdown of every mark they receive in their degree and how it was assessed from 2011 in an effort to help employers distinguish between the increasing number who graduate with 2:1s and firsts.

The marking details will be given in a new two-page Higher Education Achievement Report (Hear), which will allow employers to scrutinise the detail of applicants' degrees and even to advertise for applicants who got a certain mark in a particular module. Link

Online results in the news

Here's an article from the BBC, on how the Scottish Qualifications Authority are following our lead, kind of.

Pupils receive results on the web

Almost 35,000 pupils will receive their Scottish exam results a day earlier than most after they registered to access them over the internet.

More than a fifth of candidates have chosen to use the service, which has been made available across Scotland for the first time. Another 120,000 will wait until Tuesday for results to be delivered by post.

Meanwhile, Royal Mail has said that planned industrial action will not disrupt the results.

A total of 34,683 candidates signed up for the online results service, which allows candidates to view their results on a secure site. Link

Brave new world

Here are two articles from the Guardian. As far as I can see, they weren't linked to each other, but it's quite fun to view them as a pair. A glimpse into the future?

Online-only business foundation degree to launch

The University of Essex and education and training provider Kaplan are this summer to launch a business studies foundation degree which is completed entirely online.
Debbie Andalo Link

It's a world of possibilities

Virtual campuses are springing up in Second Life, as universities discover the advantages of cyberspace.
Jessica Shepherd Link

We're in the middle of our semester two exam period at the moment. I love the idea that in the future our invigilators will all need 3D cyberspaced alter egos. But who's to say they've not got them already?

For those with a healthy first life, and have no idea what I'm on about, Second Life is "a 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents. Since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by a total of 6,206,722 people from around the globe." Here's a cached copy of an FAQ from Oxford University on Second Life, with an academic angle, and here's a list of other institutions and organisations with an online presence there, and here's the obligatory link to Wikipedia.

"Students object to the changes on the UCAS application form"

This, from the Independent:

Students object to the changes on the UCAS application form

UCAS is planning to ask university applicants for more details of their background. Lucy Tobin reports

Published: 29 March 2007

The plan by UCAS, the university admissions service, to require applicants to record whether their parents went to university is deeply worrying to today's students. I probably wouldn't even be here under the proposed new admissions procedure," says Sara Carr, 21, an undergraduate at Cambridge University. "I went to a private school, both my parents went to university - and I'm middle class. I think it's terrible that, if I had applied via the new UCAS form, universities might allow my background to overshadow the A-levels I worked so hard for."

Continues...

And lots more here: http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=uk&ie=UTF-8&q=ucas+applicants+parents