Important changes to the retention of students' assessed work
The Office for Students requires universities to review the records of students' assessed work that they retain. The regulator expects Higher Education providers to retain assessed work for five years after a student’s course end date. These records will be used by the regulator to ensure students have been assessed effectively and to ascertain whether BCU's assessment is valid and reliable.
The Office for Students (OfS) introduced revised conditions of registration B4 Assessment and Awards and B5 Sector Recognised Standards in May 2022. The OfS’s Supplementary Guidance: Retention of Assessed work explains that ‘’guidance that accompanies these conditions sets out an expectation that a provider should retain ‘appropriate records’ of assessed students’ work, including for students who are no longer registered on a course, for a period of five years after the end date of a course. This is because students’ assessed work is likely to be relevant evidence in making judgements about compliance with elements of these conditions".
The OfS explains in the Supplementary Guidance for the Retention of Assessed work, that the ‘‘starting point is that we need access to primary evidence – the assessments themselves – to reach a judgement in relation to these requirements, for example, whether students have been assessed effectively and whether assessment is valid and reliable’’.
In response, the University set up a working group in spring 2024 to agree on an approach on how to respond to this complex, large-scale change and mandatory requirement from the regulator.
In November 2024 a draft policy was presented to the Learning Teaching Assessment and Quality Committee (LTAQC) with revisions and an implementation plan presented in February 2025. Academic Board will have final approval of the policy in May 2025.
It has been acknowledged by the OfS that it may not be appropriate to retain some types of assessed work such as artefacts and the Supplementary Guidance outlines the types of records of assessment a provider should consider retaining.
At BCU, records of assessment are retained and in line with this requirement, the University needs to increase the retention period, consider the records that are being retained and ensure that staff are equiped to comply with the conditions of registration underpinned by a consistent and clear process to follow.
Therefore, BCU’s approach will be to assess where a photograph maybe needed as part of the assessment records to meet these new requirements from the OfS. Video recordings will only be retained where they are a mandatory and approved part of an assessment, and a sampling approach will be applied to these assessments in line with the sample used for External Examiners.
Education and Development Service (EDS) have also been working on BCU’s Package of Assessment Design and Delivery that will not only support this policy but also be embedded in our Assessment and Feedback Policy which is currently under review.
Student and Academic Services is now leading the implementation of pilots across each Faculty and working through all actions on the plan in partnership with IT, EDS and academic colleagues. Regular reports on progress will be provided to LTAQC as we navigate this university-wide change.
The work will cover all platforms that are used to retain assessed work such as DigiExam, Moodle, Cadmus and Arc, and the team will be working with academic colleagues and IT to ensure that assessed work is stored in an agreed location and format, so that it can be easily retained and retrieved. This will include solutions on taking photographs of assessed work, where it is deemed necessary to satisfy this regulatory requirement.
Academic colleagues are urged to consider whether they have any work that maybe saved in a location that could not be easily located and retrieved, whether they have assessments where a video recording is a mandatory part of an assessment or where a photograph could be required as part of a record of assessment.
Further communication and information will be provided and Student and Academic Services, and EDS will be working with colleagues across all Faculties to ensure the implementation of the policy is fully supported. It is worth noting that the Assessment and Feedback Policy is also under review and this will further support the conditions of registration B4 and B5.
If you have any queries or questions please contact Deputy Director of Student and Academic Services Jolie Swain via Teams or email jolie.swain@bcu.ac.uk.