I am very pleased to welcome you to the Faculty, and hope you will have a happy and fruitful time here. As Undergraduate Education Director, one of my main tasks is to provide leadership and oversight of the operational dimension of all educational matters within the Faculty. This Handbook contains important information about how we deliver education within the Faculty and I strongly recommend that you read it, as it may help you to avoid difficulties later on. I would like especially to bring your attention to the information on plagiarism. It is extremely important that you read this. You should also make a point of reading the calculator regulations and the section on progression and awards for students.
As a student at the University of Bristol, you have a lot of freedom and opportunities. The Faculty is committed to supporting your studies, but it is your responsibility to call upon this support and to engage with the opportunities offered. The sections below are intended to outline your obligations.
The key points are:
| Title of Award | Minimum Period | Maximum Period |
|---|---|---|
| MEng | 4 academic years | 5 academic years |
| BEng, BSc | 3 academic years | 4 academic years |
| UG Diploma | 2 academic years | 3 academic years |
| UG Certificate | 1 academic year | 1 academic year |
All students are required to maintain a good level of attendance and remain engaged with their programme of study. In the Student Agreement you sign up to, you agree to:
Students that fail to maintain good attendance and achieve the academic attainment required will be referred by the department to the Faculty. On the basis of the information received, the Faculty may decide to issue a warning to the student and/or to make changes to their student status (e.g. deem them withdrawn or suspended).
In addition, there are new reporting requirements for international students in receipt of a student visa under tier 4 of the UK points-based immigration scheme who fail to attend, submit coursework and/or maintain a required academic level. A new requirement placed upon the University as a sponsor of international students is that, after one warning, we must report visa-holding students who continue to fail to maintain good attendance, to the UK Border Agency (UKBA) as being in violation of the terms of their visa.
Please note that attendance is compulsory in laboratory classes. An attendance record is kept, and absence without a good reason (which must be backed up by a self-certification form or medical certificate) will incur a penalty, such as the deduction of marks. Personal tutorials are also compulsory and attendance may be recorded. Class-lists are circulated from time to time as part of a process to monitor attendance at lectures. It is our experience that students who regularly miss lectures typically struggle with their studies. Examples classes may be of the 'surgery' type, where you attend if you need help. They can provide a structured space for working through problem sheets with staff and postgraduate support.
You should arrive on time for classes. The timetable operates on the basis that a '1-hour' session lasts only fifty minutes, to allow ten minutes to reach the next venue; and there are 20-minute refreshment breaks in the morning (10:50-11:10) and afternoon (3:50-4:10). In return, of course, staff should finish classes on time as well.
As part of our support for students, we try to identify study difficulties as early as possible, and to offer help. With proper communication between staff and the student concerned, we can usually rectify the situation.
It is a University requirement that any absences during term-time must be formally recorded as soon as possible after the period of absence. If you know in advance that you are going to miss a personal tutorial or a laboratory class please notify your personal tutor by phone or e-mail (via a friend if necessary) as soon as possible. If you fail to hand in coursework or miss an assessment, you must inform the Unit Director or Year Tutor (and note the penalty for late submission of coursework). Please also refer to the information on absences from examinations.
The Faculty and Departments keep you informed about events and changes to teaching activities in a number of ways: through notice boards, e-mail and virtual learning environments such as Blackboard. We expect you to check these every day.
Student workloads in the Engineering Faculty are calculated on the assumption that you will work an average of 40 hours per week over the 30 weeks of the academic year. 10 credits therefore represents about 100 hours of student work. This workload includes all activities related to the delivery and assessment of taught units.
A major component of this load is the time that you spend in class, in contact with the teaching staff, which includes lectures, laboratories, computing classes, tutorials, examples classes and design classes. In the early years of the Engineering programmes this scheduled time typically amounts to 17 -25 hours per week; in the later years this reduces to 7-12 hours as more time is allocated to un-scheduled work on individual or group projects.
Outside classes you are expected to pursue your own independent learning in order to build your knowledge and understanding of the subjects you are studying. Such independent activities include reviewing lecture material, reading textbooks, working on examples sheets, completing coursework, writing up laboratory notes, preparing for in-class progress tests and revising for examinations.
The 100 hours per 10 credits includes all the time that you will need to spend on completing coursework assignments to the required standard or preparing for and taking examinations. For units that are assessed by coursework alone, the full 100 hours per 10 credits is expected to be used in completing the coursework and so these units may put a higher demand on your time during the normal teaching year. Most of the exams are held in May/June while coursework deadlines are spread out through the teaching year. You will therefore need to plan carefully to make sure that you can meet your coursework deadlines while still keeping up with your scheduled classes. Your Department will provide you with a coursework schedule each year to allow you to manage your workload efficiently.
It is important that you monitor your study effort and be aware of any negative signs, such as the following:
The occurrence of two or more of these should ring warning bells and you should do something to remove whatever is obstructing your studies. If you are putting in the hours and yet still having problems, you might see your personal tutor for advice - it might be that you not working effectively, or that you are overworking.
In line with the University's “Code of Practice for the Assessment of Students on Taught Programmes, the Faculty has agreed the following penalties for late submission of coursework:
You will need to learn and develop the skills that allow you to study effectively. Often other students can help you with this, as can your tutor. Some people need to learn them, just like any other subject and you may find it helpful to read one of the many 'how to study' books now available in bookshops. You may also find it useful to refer to the following resources:
The University and the Faculty work hard at providing effective education. Its quality is tested by a number of independent inspections. The main governmental inspection is the Institutional Audit, which is carried out every five years by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). Following its latest audit in 2009, the QAA bestowed a judgement of “confidence” in the soundness of the University's present and likely future management of its academic standards and the quality of the learning opportunities available to students. This judgement is the highest rating possible that can be awarded by the audit team. No numerical scores are given. Our programmes are also inspected by professional bodies and wherever possible, they are all accredited by them as appropriate for the education of professional engineers. Bristol’s students can also voice their opinion of the quality of education provided, and the Faculty continually does very well in the National Student Survey.
The University of Bristol aims to provide study 'in a research environment'. In keeping with this aim, the Faculty of Engineering includes teaching staff who undertake world-class work. This, together with active contact with industry, helps to keep our degree programmes stimulating and up-to-date. This state-of-the-art material is underpinned by a thorough treatment of the fundamentals - principles that can be used for the whole of your working life.
You can also expect to enhance your transferable skills, such as using computer-based tools, writing reports, working in teams and giving presentations.
We aim to use an appropriate range of teaching methods, including lectures, examples classes, and laboratory work, to ensure deep learning of the material, rather than simply the ability to reproduce lists of facts. Continuous assessment is used to monitor and assess your progress over the year; one of the purposes of this is to identify problems as early as possible. We also use computer based assessments to help you learn and to assess your performance.
We aim to assess your work fairly and promptly, giving you constructive criticism where appropriate. In return, we want you to take up the opportunities offered and achieve high standards. Dealing successfully with assessment is important to us, and you are expected to pass your units at the first attempt. Should you not achieve this, then a resit is usually allowed in the first two years of study, but this is a concession to you. Assessment and progression are dealt with fully later in this Handbook.
We are always seeking to improve our programmes, and we provide the opportunity to feed back your views through questionnaires, forums, departmental liaison committees, and the Faculty Student-Staff Consultative Committee (SSCC). Serving on the SSCC will give you useful experience, and representatives from that committee attend the Faculty Undergraduate Studies Committee and the Faculty Board.
We aim to provide a fast response to problems reported to us, but some issues (such as matters of curriculum design) may be inherently impossible to resolve until the following academic year - so that your successors gain the benefit.
| Dr Mark Gilbertson Undergraduate Education Director September 2009 Tel (0117) 331 5923; internal 15923 |
| E-mail: m.gilbertson@bristol.ac.uk |
