Undergraduate Assessment Moderation

What is moderation?

Consistency and fairness of assessment is ensured through a process known as moderation. Moderation is a process separate from the marking of assessments. Moderation ensures that:

• an assessment outcome (mark and /or grade) is fair, valid and reliable
• assessment criteria have been applied consistently
• any differences in academic judgement between individual markers can be acknowledged and addressed. 

Common guidance includes:

• Moderators cannot moderate their own marking.
• No changes should be made to marking without the original marker’s knowledge.
• All adjustment to marks must be made before marks and feedback are returned to students.

Good practice includes:

• Where marks have been adjusted by moderation, moderators must ensure that feedback is still consistent with the mark.
• Marking schemes must be made available to all students at the start of each course and programme.
• Records of all marking and moderation must be kept up to date and retained on file.

How are assessments moderated?

Single-Marking Sampled Moderation

A sample of marked assignments from each individual marker is moderated to assess a range of factors:

• Is the marker’s feedback detailed enough to let the students know what they have done well and how they can improve their performance in future assessments?
• Does the feedback justify the mark according to the marking scheme?
• Is the feedback and mark an accurate assessment of the student’s work according to the marking scheme?

Double Marking

There are two types of double-marking: Blind Double Marking, and Non-Blind Double Marking.   

Blind-Double Marking

The first marker and second marker independently mark all students’ work. Marks and feedback from the first marker are not available to the second marker, and vice versa. This form of marking is used for Y4 project reports in most programmes (dissertations).

Marks from the two markers are averaged to reach a single final mark as long as there is a difference of 5% or less between the two marks.

Non-Blind Double Marking

This approach may be especially useful where the first marker, but not the second marker, is a subject expert.

1. A first marker (or team of first markers) marks the assessment and produces feedback.
2. The assessment, the first marker’s mark and feedback are then passed to the second marker (or team of second markers) for marking and feedback.

Records of moderation

All moderation and assessment mark changes must be recorded and sent to the Course Administrator with the finalised set of provisional marks for each moderated assessment.

Moderation of Multiple Choice Assessments

 Multiple choice exam questions should be moderated by carrying out quality assurance checks. A discipline expert should check that all questions, answers and explanations adequately assess learning outcomes, are correct and are non-ambiguous.

The Undergraduate Moderation Guide reflects the full guidance given to staff and provides further detail on how moderation is performed.