The University of Liverpool is among 140 universities across the country experiencing national industrial action by members of the University & College Union (UCU).
UCU, which has been asking members to participate in a marking and assessment boycott, have notified the University that this element of their current action has now ended, and staff will be asked to prioritise marking activity over the coming weeks alongside their normal teaching commitments.
This information will be updated regularly, so please check back before contacting your department with any questions you may have.
If you are taking a different type of course such as Pre-Sessional English (English Language Centre) this detail may not apply. Your course will be in touch with you directly.
Release of exam and assessment results
Delayed 2022/23 marks have now been received and are currently being processed and reviewed by our Boards of Examiners. All marks, including those which have been missing as a result of the marking and assessment boycott, will be made available for you to view in the Results Portal on Wednesday, 15 November from 10am.
Please be aware that the Results Portal will be closed ahead of that date between Monday, 30 October and 10am on Wednesday, 15 November to facilitate the upload of marks. If you wish to view your existing marks or need evidence of your existing marks within this period, please contact your school office who will be able to assist you.
If you have graduated with delayed marks your overall module marks will begin to be made available shortly via the Graduate Document Portal. You will receive a notification that updated documents have been made available to you and further information about this will be emailed to you directly (including steps you need to take to access the portal). Component marks (the marks which make up your overall module result) will be available to view in the University’s Results Portal from 10am on Wednesday, 15 November.
Your Results Portal
Please note the following:
- If any of your module or component marks have been delayed beyond results day they will initially appear blank within the Results Portal.
- If extenuating circumstances have been accepted on any of your modules or you were absent from your exam or assessment you should see the relevant ‘flag’ within your portal. This means your mark is not missing as a result of the industrial action (where it would simply be blank).You can find out more about extenuating circumstances and resit and retake options on our webpages.
- UCU, which has been asking members to participate in a marking and assessment boycott, have notified the University that this element of their current action has now ended, and staff will be asked to prioritise marking activity over the coming weeks alongside their normal teaching commitments.
- If you are currently missing marks you should expect to receive them within the Results Portal as soon as marks have been submitted and finalised by our Boards of Examiners. This can take several weeks and you will be kept up to date with progress. Please note resit marks have been released where they are available.
Provisional pass information (continuing students)
If you are a continuing student (those not in their final year of study) and one or more of your marks are missing as a result of the marking and assessment boycott you may receive a ‘provisional pass’ instead of a normal ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ within your Results Portal. This will be updated once all of your marks have been received.
A provisional pass means that, based on the marks we have available at the current time, you are expected to pass. All students will be able to progress to their next year of study if they have a provisional pass but are still missing some marks.
If you are a continuing student and do not have an outcome of pass/ pass provisional/ resit or fail this may be because you are registered for fewer than 120 credits for this academic year. If this is the case your status will be updated once marks have been received for all of the credits for which you are registered this year.
Please be assured that you will, in due course, receive all of your marks. We don’t under estimate how difficult the delay is for our students and we’d like to offer you our sincere apologies for the disruption.
Graduation information (final year students)
If you are in your final year and any of your marks are missing, you were still eligible to attend your graduation ceremony in July. We hope you enjoyed your special day, celebrating your hard work with family and friends, if you did attend in person.
Digital degree certificates, and HEAR's (Higher Education achievement Report), have been shared with all July graduates and hard copy degree certificates have begun to be dispatched. Click here for further information on degree documentation.
If you have received your full set of marks (120 credits) at the time of your graduation ceremony, you will receive nothing further.
If you have successfully completed between 60 and 89 credits, and graduated initially, with an ordinary degree, then once all of your marks have been received and you have passed sufficient credits for a classified degree you will be issued with new digital documents, and a new certificate.
If you have between 90 and 119 credits, and graduated initially, with a provisional degree classification, then, once all of your marks have been received you will get your final classification and if this is higher than your provisional classification, and be issued with new digital documents, and a new certificate. Your final classification will not be lower than your provisional classification as long as you have passed all of the modules for which you are currently missing marks.
Your University of Liverpool IT and email account will remain active until you have received your final degree classification.
Boards of Examiners and moderation processes
Moderation and Boards of Examiners are part of the measures we have in place to ensure maintenance of quality and standards and is part of the assessment and marking process every year.
Every year your marks are reviewed and confirmed by Boards of Examiners. Students who have experienced disruption to teaching this year as a result of industrial action will have their overall profile scrutinised by the Board of Examiners to ensure any impact is considered.
Moderation of marks in semester two will take place in line with our normal processes. This means that all assessment tasks for a module that contribute 20% or more to the overall module mark are normally moderated by sampling. Our moderation requirements are robust and at the higher end of the scale in relation to our counterparts across the higher education sector. These processes may be reviewed depending on the level of disruption, but any change will be in line with processes agreed with our University Board of Examiners.
International student Graduate Route Visa applications
If you are an international student in the final year of your undergraduate programme and you intend to apply for the Graduate Route Visa you can apply to switch to the Graduate Route Visa once you have received a full set of marks OR before your Student Visa expires, whichever is earlier. You will still be able to apply even if you have missing marks.
UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) have confirmed that if your results are delayed, you can submit your Graduate Route Visa application before your Student Visa expires if you expect to receive your results within 8 weeks of applying for your Graduate Route Visa. UKVI will hold your application for up to 8 weeks from the date of submission of the application and will process your Graduate Route Visa application once you have received your missing results.
Most international students will have a visa expiry date of 2 October 2023. If your visa expires before 2 October 2023, you do not expect to receive your results within 8 weeks of applying for your Graduate Route visa or you are not sure when you will get your results please contact International Advice and Guidance to discuss your situation.
Moving into employment after graduation
As this is national industrial action many universities are experiencing the same issues and there is expected to be a high level of flexibility for those waiting for final marks and classifications.
If you are concerned that a delay to your final classification may impact your job search or if you have an agreed start date for a job please contact the Careers and Employability team and they will be able to support you and recommend the best course of action. You can do this by either calling into the Career Studio (open until or via the 'Send a Message' facility on Handshake and one of the team will be on hand to help.
Our Careers and Employability Team have contacted all employer partners with an update on the current situation. This information can be found within this article from the Institute of Student Employers and it may be helpful to include this if you are contacting a potential employer directly.
Progressing from undergraduate to master's study at Liverpool
Wherever possible, no student currently completing an undergraduate degree in a UK university will be denied entry to a University of Liverpool master’s programme for which they have been made an offer on the grounds of missing marks due to industrial action, where existing marks indicate the student is likely to meet the terms of an offer.
If you are a current University of Liverpool student holding an offer to study one of our master’s programmes, the academic team leading your course, together with our admissions team, will assess your marks and make an informed decision as quickly as possible. We normally guarantee that we’ll make a decision on current University of Liverpool offer holders’ applications within five days of receiving your exam results. However, this may be delayed due to issues such as the extent of your missing marks, or the complexity of the information we need to make a decision.
If you offer is confirmed, we will not rescind that offer if your final exam marks are not as high as previously provided. Please note, this will only occur where we have honoured your offer on the basis of missing marks due the boycott, and where your available marks indicate that you would meet the terms of your offer. Will we not honour your offer if your missing marks are due to reasons other than the marking and assessment boycott.
Applications to study at a different university
As this is national industrial action many universities are experiencing the same issues and there is expected to be a high level of flexibility for those waiting for final marks and classifications.
The university you have applied to will likely contact you in due course. Most are asking offer holders who have been affected by the marking and assessment boycott to provide as much information as possible to demonstrate that their available marks meet the terms of their offer. This could be in the form of an official completion of studies letter from their university and details about how to access this via the University of Liverpool Results Portal will be announced shortly.
The Department for Education have also made temporary changes to how Initial Teacher Training (ITT) candidates are assessed so candidates can start their courses in September despite mark delays. This year, to make sure that candidates can start their ITT in September, universities and school-led ITT providers that offer ITT will be able to recruit trainees whose degree status has not yet been confirmed because they have been impacted by the boycott. More information is available on the DFE webpages.
National dispute information
The industrial action taking place at 140 UK universities is in relation to a national dispute over pay. It is a collective UK-wide action and as a result the affected universities, including Liverpool, are reliant on national negotiations to try to resolve the disputes.
Discussions between UCU, the other recognised trade unions Unison and Unite, and the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), which is the organisation which manages national pay negotiations of behalf of UK universities, have now concluded, and UCEA submitted a final pay offer in January which has been implemented for all staff. The uplift ranged from 8% at the lowest end of the scale to 5% at the highest end of the scale.
Support
Please continue to check our industrial action FAQs, our Results webpages and your University email for updates.
Teams across the University are available if you need support. Our Student Services team can help you with a range of non-academic issues. Student Services are based in the Alsop Building on University Square and you can book an appointment with the team via the online booking system.
A list of resources and teams who can support you is available on our Student News pages.
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