UAL Online Assessments
Welcome to the UAL Online Assessment page. Here you'll find everything you need to navigate your assessments, including information on how to submit your work, grading, feedback, and regulations on retaking units and assessments. Along with our Assessment Guide, you can find more information in the ‘Assessments’ tab in your unit in your Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Assessment types and feedback
There are 2 types of assessment at UAL: formative and summative.
You’ll receive feedback from your tutors throughout your unit in the form of guidance and suggested development, not a letter grade at this stage.
unit. They're designed to formally assess your work.
Feedback is given after you've submitted your work at the end of the unit. You'll get a letter grade and will receive feedback and guidance for future work.
Preparing and submitting assessments
You must submit your assessment through your Virtual Learning Environment. You'll always find the location where you need to submit your work, and guidance about what you need to do in order to submit, in week 14 of your unit.
The 'Assessments' tab
You’ll find all the information you need to check that your work is ready for submission, including your deadline, in the ‘Assessments’ tab in your unit. You'll find this tab at the top of each unit home page.
The ‘Assessments’ tab has been designed to explain:
- Information about the brief(s) and any other key information about what you need to do to successfully complete the unit
- The submission requirements, explaining what you need to produce for each assessment component
- Information about the file formats and requirements of your submission, for example, wordcounts or time limits for media submissions
- Information about grading and feedback, so you know what to expect
File formats
Ensure you submit every assessment component with your work prepared in the correct file formats as specified on the ‘Assessments’ tab.
Quantity of work
Referencing
Your tutors and assessors will expect you to credit the sources that inform and support your work. As long as your sources are properly referenced, it's not considered plagiarism to refer to the work of others.
Individual Support Agreements (ISAs)
Students with Individual Support Agreements (ISAs) may be offered adjusted assessments, which may include additional time to submit an assessment on request. Students with an ISA will automatically see the adjusted assessment deadline reflected on their submission page.
Please tell the Student Success team if you intend to submit your work on the adjusted assessment deadline which is indicated on your submission page. You should do this 2 weeks before the standard deadline.
If you have any questions about ISAs, please contact your Student Success team or the Disability Service team at disability@arts.ac.uk.
Using AI
There will be a variety of ways in which AI can help you in your work, but it’s critical that AI is used appropriately and ethically, and that you're transparent about how you've used it.
For more information, explore your Induction Unit and the Student Guide to Generative AI.
Where to submit assessments
You must submit your assessment through your Virtual Learning Environment. You'll always find the location where you need to submit your work, and guidance on how to submit in week 14 of your unit.
The details of the work you need to submit and the guidance will differ from unit to unit (and from course to course).
Deadlines
Know your deadline date and time. Check that you've correctly adjusted the submission time to your local time zone. If you need to make any changes to your submission after the deadline, please contact Student Success for advice.
To find the most accurate assessment dates, visit UAL Online's Key dates and deadlines page.
Your responsibilities
When submitting work for assessment, it's your responsibility to:
- Ensure that work is your own
- Submit by the date and time given on the ‘Assessments’ tab
- Submit in the approved format and according to any rules specified on the ‘Assessments’ tab and project brief (e.g. word count, document format, number of pieces etc.)
- Allow yourself enough time to successfully submit your assignment and check that the submission has been submitted
- Contact your Student Success team before the assessment deadline if you're having difficulties.
Read more about your rights and responsibilities as a UAL Online student.
Academic integrity and misconduct
UAL Online takes all cases of Academic Misconduct very seriously. If you commit Academic Misconduct, it could lead to failure of that assignment and/or unit and serious or repeated offences may lead to failure of the whole stage of the course, suspension or even expulsion.
Academic Integrity: You're expected to uphold academic integrity when submitting your work. You should present your own original work with all sources clearly acknowledged through referencing.
Academic Misconduct: This refers to any form of academic cheating such as plagiarism. You can commit self-plagiarism if you deliberately submit the same piece of work for assessment on more than one occasion.
Find out more about plagiarism and how to avoid it in your work.
How assessments are marked and graded
Students' work is marked against 5 assessment criteria. Use them to help guide your learning and ask your tutor how to make them work for you.
You'll be marked on the following:
- Enquiry
- Knowledge
- Process
- Communication
- Realisation
Find a full breakdown chart for our grading scale, exam boards and marking criteria in the assessment guide (PDF 1MG).
Your tutor will provide a grade from A – F against the marking criteria and then an overall grade for that assessment. The grade can range from A+ to F-.
Your work will be marked by your course team. A first marker will carry out their assessment of your work and write feedback. A second marker will also mark some, or all of the student submissions. They will award you a grade based on their agreed judgment of your submission against the marking criteria.
Results
UAL Online postgraduate courses have 15-unit grades, ranging from A+ to F–. You’ll be awarded a grade for each unit based on your summative assessment submission.
Final Award Classifications
Your final award is the result that will appear on your degree certificate. Your award will be calculated differently depending on the award level you chose.
Postgraduate Certificate and Postgraduate Diploma
The final award classification for these awards is comprised of the grades for all units you take to achieve this award.
Master’s Degree
The final award classification is comprised of the marks from the final 2 units you take in your course.
Provisional Results Release
Provisional results will be released roughly one week before teaching starts on the next Teaching Block. This release will provide you with feedback on your summative assessment and an indicative grade.
When your results are ready, you’ll be sent an email notification. In it, there will be a link that takes you to view your results via the Assessment Feedback Tool (AFT), UAL’s digital assessment interface. It lets you see your grades and your tutors' feedback.
AFT allows you to see:
- How your work has been provisionally graded against the University’s online marking criteria
- Your feedback from tutors
It's important to note that your grade will not be finalised until the Exam Board meets to review it. For instance, any penalties to your grade will only be applied after the Exam Board reviews your result, and will be shown to you in the ratified results release (see below).
Ratified Results Release
Ratified Results are released following review by a formal Exam Board, roughly around weeks 2 – 3 into your next teaching block. These are the results which will appear on your transcript. When your results are ready, you’ll be sent an email notification directing you to the Student Portal.
The Student Portal allows you to see:
- Your final, ratified results
- Resubmission information (if applicable)
Any penalties to your grade will have been taken into account prior to the release of your grade. The Student Portal is the single source of truth when it comes to viewing a final record of your grade results. It displays the grades that will appear on your transcript.
Passing, Penalties and Failures
You'll need to pass all your units to complete your course and receive your award. There are three levels of awards offered on each UAL Online course:
- To be awarded the Postgraduate Certificate, you must successfully pass 2 units, totalling 60 credits.
- To be awarded the Postgraduate Diploma, you must successfully pass 4 units, totalling 120 credits.
- To be awarded the Master's, you must successfully pass 6 units, totalling 180 credits.
Leaving your course early
If you're unable to continue or decide to exit the course early and you're enrolled on the PgDip or MA, you may be eligible for an exit award.
- If you've successfully completed 60 credits, you'll be awarded a PgCert.
- If you've successfully completed 120 credits, you'll be awarded a PgDip.
Late Submissions and fails
If you submit your assessment after the deadline, your work will be subject to penalties. You'll fail a unit if:
- you do not submit your work
- you receive an award grade of E, F and F
Resubmissions
A resubmission is another opportunity for you to submit your work at a later date. This is ordinarily set around week 6 of the next Teaching Block. The new date will be communicated to you by the Exam Board.
The Student Success team can offer you advice and guidance around this.
Retaking a unit
Retaking a unit means you'll have to take the unit again when it's next offered, from the beginning. You may need to take a study break until the unit is available. You'll also have to pay tuition fees for the retake unit. So long as you submit by the new deadline, the grade for this assessment will not be capped.
Assessment FAQs
Deadline extensions for assessment submissions
Unfortunately, UAL doesn't allow extensions for assessments.
However, if you have an ISA in place, you may have an adjusted assessment deadline. It's your choice whether you use this deadline. You should inform the Student Success team 2 weeks in advance of the deadline if you want to use the adjusted date for submission.
Appeal against a grade
You can't appeal against a grade based on academic judgement. Your assessment goes through a rigorous marking process, through multiple layers of reviewers, to ensure that the grade you receive is a fair and accurate reflection of your work according to University benchmarks and regulations.
You're only able to appeal an Exam Board decision if you've new information that wasn't considered at the time.
This would be if:
- There was an error which affected your assessment. For example, if the University lost some of your work.
- There were extenuating circumstances – something happened that you weren’t able to tell us about and prevented you from submitting an on-time EC Claim. For example, you were in hospital and couldn’t contact the College.
Learn more about appealing an exam board decision.
Retaking an assessment you passed
Once you've passed your assessment, your result is final. If you've passed an assessment but you're not happy with the grade, you can't retake it to improve it.
Failing a unit
If you fail a unit, you'll be emailed to say you need to retrieve your failure. This means you'll be asked to resubmit work or retake your unit. If you're in this position, you might want to take a study break from your next unit. You can then focus on your resubmission before coming back to study a new unit. Please reach out to the Student Success team as soon as possible if you've failed a unit. We can offer support and guidance on how to resubmit or retake.
Failing an elective unit
Once you've enrolled in and started a unit, you must pass that unit. You're not able to move to a different elective unit.
Help with assessments
If you need help and support with your assessments, please contact Student Success in the first instance. We'll be able to offer advice and guidance to support you. You can also ask questions in the general discussion in your unit, ask your tutor in live sessions, tutorials and by messaging them. All information about your assessment is provided in the unit information, so check the ‘Assessments’ tab and ‘Unit Information’ tab to review this and gather your questions.
How to resubmit an assessment
A resubmission is where you're asked to submit work for a failed unit. You'll be given a new deadline for your resubmission. The resubmission details will be available in the VLE. Please contact the Student Success team for any queries about your resubmission. If you fail to resubmit, you'll be asked to retake the unit again.
Retaking a unit
Retaking a unit is where you're asked to re-enrol on the failed unit when it becomes available again to study. You might need to take a study break until the unit is available. This means you'll not be able to progress with your peers from previous units. You'll also pay tuition fees for the retake unit. You'll need to engage with all the learning materials and activities and complete all assignment briefs and work described in the Assessments Tab.
Capped resubmission grades
A capped grade on assessment means that there'll be a penalty imposed on your grade, due to late submission, non-submission or because you’ve been asked to submit a re-assessment or retake a unit. The level of penalty applied will depend on your circumstances. You can find further detail in Course Regulations. The Student Success team can also help you to understand how the cap will be applied to your grade.
What does it mean if my resubmission grade is uncapped?
An uncapped resubmission means that there will be no penalties applied to your grade after it's marked.
Flagged for Academic Misconduct
If you've been flagged for Academic Misconduct, you'll first be invited to an initial interview with your Course Leader as part of an investigation into Academic Misconduct. This gives you an opportunity to provide additional context and feedback on your situation. After this interview, if the Academic Misconduct is deemed to be either moderate or serious, your case will be taken to a panel for review. The outcome of that panel will be communicated to you by the Academic Misconduct Officer.
Self-plagiarism and what this means
This means you've committed Academic Misconduct as you've submitted work that has previously been assessed. If you want to use existing work, it can only be as a starting point. You're required to develop it further, rewrite it or present it in a new and original way. There'll be an investigation into Academic Misconduct as outlined in the question above.
More to explore
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Babett Kurschner working on a laptop, London College of Communication, UAL | Photograph: Alys Tomlinson,
Key dates and deadlines
Get information on key dates and deadlines for teaching blocks, assessments, and grade release.
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Student Centre
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