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University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

Undergraduate Honour School

Programme Specification for BA in Geography for students taking Finals examinations in and after 2010

1. Awarding Institution/Body

University of Oxford

2. Teaching Institution:

University of Oxford

3. Programme Accreditation:

Not applicable.

4. Final Award:

BA (Hons)

5. Programme:

Geography

6. UCAS Code:

L700

7. Relevant Subject Benchmark Statement:

Geography

8. Date of Programme Specification:

1 September 2010

The details of the FHS specification are valid up until, and including, examinations in 2012.

9. Educational Aims of the Programme

The programme aims to provide:

  • A coherent compulsory core syllabus focussed upon the ways in which relationships between people and the natural environment and patterns of spatial relationships vary across the globe and have changed through time.
  • An understanding of how these relationships produce the distinctiveness of particular places, landscapes, and patterns of environmental and human attributes.
  • The ability to conceptualise these relationships and their outcomes at a range of scales, from the global to the local.
  • Awareness of how geographical knowledge and understanding, and therefore current beliefs about issues such as environmental change and global inequalities, are related to the means of depiction, conceptualisation and analysis employed.
  • The opportunity to specialise in particular branches of physical and/or human geography to discover the relationships between geography and kindred disciplines at and near the frontiers of research, and develop the technical capacity to advance those frontiers.
  • The acquisition of the skills relevant to the further advancement of professional geographical understanding, which are transferable to a wide range of life experiences and employment contexts.

10. Programme Outcomes

A. Students will develop a knowledge and understanding of:
  1. The physical geographical systems which combine to produce the natural environment.

    Related teaching/learning methods and strategies
    A combination of compulsory lectures, tutorials, fieldwork and practical classes in Years 1 and 2 and/or 3.
  2. Human geographical systems and how they are affected by, and operate upon, the natural environment.

    Related teaching/learning methods and strategies
    A combination of compulsory lectures, tutorials, fieldwork and practical classes in Years 1 and 2 and/or 3.
  3. How the operation and interaction of physical and human geographical systems have changed through time.

    Related teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Compulsory lectures and related tutorials and/or seminars in Years 1, 2 and 3.
  4. The complexity of particular component systems of physical and human geography, and the provisional nature of our knowledge about them.

    Related teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Optional lectures and related tutorials; two long essays and a dissertation, about which individual tutorial guidance is given on choice of topics and modes of procedure; fieldwork and laboratory classes in appropriate optional subjects.
  5. How geographical knowledge is and has been acquired and contested, and how the academic study of geography has developed historically.

    Related teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Fieldwork, practical classes and guided independent study of seminal texts in year 1; compulsory lecture course in Year 2 or 3; laboratory classes in appropriate optional subjects; a dissertation and two long essays in Year 3.
Assessment
  1. Most aspects of the required knowledge and understanding are tested through summative assessment in written examinations during the course of the third and ninth Terms of the programme. The former, which evaluate technical, rhetorical and discursive skills as well as knowledge and understanding, qualify students for entry into the 2nd and 3rd Years. The latter account for 62.5 per cent of the Final degree classification.
  2. Two pieces of Submitted Work, which may comprise Long Essays (of 5,000 words), or Laboratory Notebooks or Research Project Reports (of 4,000 words), each related to an optional subject, submitted at the start of the ninth Term, account for 12.5 per cent in the Final degree classification.
  3. A Dissertation of c. 12,000 words submitted at the start of the eighth Term, comprising a research project based on primary sources of information, designed and completed by the student, accounts for 25 per cent of the Final degree classification. An abstract of the intended dissertation is presented to the Head of Department for approval during the sixth term. The dissertation mark is an average of evaluations of the aims and conceptualisation of the project; the quality of its execution, and the standard of organisation and presentation.
  4. Tutors give weekly assessments of essay work. They do not enter into degree classification, but are formative assessments for the guidance of students on the quality and progress of their work.
  5. Generally, students are given termly Collections of two kinds by their colleges (although practices may vary slightly in detail from college to college and from time to time). The first are progress reports presented individually to students at the end of each term. The second are examination papers set and assessed immediately before the start of a term on the work done in the previous term. Collection marks and assessments do not enter into degree classification, but monitor formatively the progress of knowledge and understanding.
B. Skills and other attributes

Students have the opportunity to develop the following skills during the course:

I. Intellectual skills
  1. Exercise critical judgement and evaluation of secondary information and argument.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Weekly essays are written and discussed in tutorials to promote the skills relevant to the careful and critical reading and exegesis of secondary studies. Most students (depending on the options taken and their college) prepare seminar papers for class discussion once in each year.
  2. Argue persuasively.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Weekly essays and their discussion, seminar presentations and critical contributions, and the elucidation of findings during fieldwork courses, develop rhetorical skills and the ability to identify issues and marshal evidence coherently and logically. Skills in the presentation of an argument are developed particularly through the student presentations on topics in the Geographical Controversies paper in Year 1.
  3. Gather and analyse primary source materials in order to address carefully specified research problems.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Practical classes and fieldwork in Year 1; dissertation in Year 3, for which practical classes are provided in Term 6; depending on optional subjects chosen, fieldwork, laboratory classes and the submission of a research project report if written in lieu of long essays in Year 3.
  4. Present research findings in a coherent and persuasive manner.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Intensive discussion of the dissertation project and its progress with college tutors and departmental staff working in the research area concerned, and of project work with lecturers in appropriate options. In Year 1 students have to make a presentation to a seminar group on a key debate or period in Geography's history.
  5. Understand the relationship between information, conceptualisation and evaluation.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    The guided study of a seminal geographical text, student-led class presentations and practical and field work in Year 1; practical classes in relation to, and discussion and preparation of the dissertation and project reports in lieu of long essay(s) in Year 3.
  6. Exercise independence of mind and a willingness to challenge and criticise accepted opinion.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    The vigorous argument encouraged in weekly college tutorials, in departmental seminars, and in fieldwork discussions are intended to inculcate these skills.
Assessment

1, 2, 5 and 6 are summatively assessed through written examinations in Terms 3 and 9 of the programme. 3 and 4 are summatively assessed through a Geographical Techniques examination in Term 3 and through the dissertation and (in appropriate options) project reports in Term 9. Formative assessment of 1, 2, 5 and 6 is provided by weekly tutorials or classes in which students present and defend their written essay material in front of an established academic geographer and one or more of their peers. Formative assessment of presentational skills occurs for the Geographical Controversies paper in Year 1. Formative assessment of 3 and 4 is provided by intensive one-to-one discussion of dissertation and project work with established experts in the appropriate areas of geography.

II. Subject-specific practical skills
  1. Subject-specific practical skills learned by all students include statistical analysis, Geographical Information Systems (GIS), the interpretation of remotely sensed imagery, and qualitative data analysis.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Three-hour practical classes held in Terms 1 and 2.
  2. Students must learn the practical skills appropriate to the particular special subjects for which they opt. These range from scanning electron and other microscopy (Forensic Geography, Biogeography), though thermo-luminescence dating (Quaternary Geography), computer programming and the use of GIS (Climatology).

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Practical classes run as part of the formal teaching provision for particular special subjects.
Assessment

1 is formatively assessed continuously by teaching assistants, and summatively assessed in an examination in Term 3. 2 are formatively assessed during the course of their presentation, and are summatively assessed in the evaluation of dissertations and project reports in which they are used.

III. Transferable skills
  1. The ability to find secondary information, organise it and deploy it in an argument.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    This is the basis of work for weekly tutorials, involving the use of libraries and of IT for the collection and presentation of essay material. Presentation skills are developed for the Geographical Controversies paper.
  2. The ability to use IT to gather and analyse primary source materials, and to present findings.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Practical classes in Year 1 provide instruction in the use of computer databases and computational routines; dissertation and project work, and practical classes related to them, further develop these skills in Years 2 and 3. Use of appropriate IT is an important part of the presentation for the Geographical Controversies paper in Year 1.
  3. The capacity to work with a strong sense of self-direction.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    The preparation of weekly essays, long essays, dissertations and projects.
  4. The ability to work effectively as a member of a group.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    Fieldwork assignments are invariably organised as group work, with collective gathering of information and the pooling and discussion of findings.
  5. The ability to argue coherently and persuasively, in (a) written and (b) verbal presentations.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    All modes of formal teaching and learning encourage the development of this skill, from essay writing and discussion, through seminar and fieldwork presentations, and the preparation of dissertations and projects, to written examinations. The Geographical Controversies paper in Year 1 requires students to give a verbal presentation to a seminar group.
  6. Where appropriate, make use of language skills.

    Teaching/learning methods and strategies
    N/A
Assessment

1-3 and 5a are formatively assessed continuously in tutorials and periodically in seminars and fieldwork presentations. They are summatively assessed in examinations. 4 and 5(b) are not summatively assessed, but subject to formative assessment on fieldweeks and in seminars and in the presentation and folder submitted as part of the Geographical Controversies paper in Year 1.

11. Programme Structures and Features

  • The high level of student performance prior to admission (see 13 below) provides the base line of expectation. However, in recognition of the wide variety of the school syllabuses followed by home, E.U. and foreign students, the first year Preliminary Examination courses are compulsory, to ensure a common level of knowledge and understanding before proceeding to the Honour School programme in the second year.
  • The Geographical Controversies paper is largely based on independent learning, with guidance given through a course handbook.
  • The Honour School during the second and third years contains three compulsory core courses (comprising 37.5 per cent of the total assessed elements), to guarantee that all students possess foundational knowledge and ideas, and that their learning experiences are not too disparate. The provision of tutorials for these courses internally within colleges (typically in termly series of 8) ensures close intellectual interaction between students and their college tutors.
  • The choice of two optional Special Subjects (comprising 25 per cent of the total assessed elements) allows students a measure of control over the content of their Honour School syllabus. Selection may yield wide variety across the branches of human and physical geography, or a narrow focus on closely related specialisms. 16 lectures or seminars and eight tutorials or classes are provided by academics who are actively involved in research in each Special Subject.
  • Two Long Essays, or practical projects or laboratory notebooks, in appropriate Special Subjects (comprising 12.5 per cent of the total assessed elements) allow students, with help and guidance on reading or data acquisition, to pursue particular topics into considerable depth. With the dissertation, this component of the course reduces the importance of the terminal written examinations in the overall degree performance.
  • The significance of the terminal written examinations is reduced further by the dissertation of 12,000 words, which accounts for 25 per cent of the total assessed elements of the course. It is written on a subject of the student's choice, with continuing guidance from academics involved in related research.
A. Learning in the First Year

The First Year course is designed to introduce students to new concepts, ideas, and approaches in geography, both through an examination of topics with which they are familiar and through the introduction of some which they will not have covered before.

  1. Physical Geography core, comprising lecture courses in:
    Climatology;
    Geomorphology; and
    Ecology of the Biosphere.
  2. Human Geography core, comprising lecture courses in:
    Cities, Societies and Migrants;
    Ecologies, Resources and Economies;
    Territories, States and Identities.
  3. Geographical Techniques core, with components on:
    Quantitative Techniques: Statistics and EXCEL;
    Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS);
    Techniques for Human Geography.
  4. Fieldwork core
    Students must attend two day field courses, one in Michaelmas term and one in Hilary term, and write up their findings in a Fieldwork Folder, the assessment of which contributes 25 per cent of the mark for the Geographical Techniques paper.
  5. Geographical Controversies
    This paper requires an understanding of geographical controversies past and present, and the importance of a critical understanding of the use of evidence and data in geographical argument.
Assessment

Formative assessment is through tutorials, postgraduate assistance with and monitoring of practical work, fieldwork participation and (in many cases) college seminars. Summative assessment is through written examinations in Term 3, supplemented by a mark for the Fieldwork Folder. Each candidate is also required to submit a satisfactory folder containing work completed as part of the Geographical Controversies course. The John House Prize is awarded to the student with the highest aggregate mark.

B. Learning in Year 2

Students work for three compulsory core courses, two optional special subject courses, a dissertation, and long essays or project reports related to their special subjects. A list of optional courses available for examination in Term 9 is published before the start of Term 4.

Each core and special subject course is supported by a series of lectures and tutorials. Generally, there are 24 lectures and 8 tutorials for each core course, and 16 lectures or seminars, plus 8 tutorials or classes for each special subject.

College tutors and academics researching in the appropriate field of geography give help and guidance in the preparation of the dissertation and long essays.

  1. The Geographical Environment: Physical core course conveys the basic workings of the biosphere, the nature of the major world physical environments and their significance to living things, processes of environmental change, and the role of humans as agents of change.
  2. The Geographical Environment: Human core course studies the same themes from the standpoint of human society, investigating the roles that culture and technology play in human approaches to, and uses of, the environment.
  3. The Philosophy, Nature, and Practice of Geography core course examines the development of ideas in geography and its methods, theories, and schools of thought.
  4. A Dissertation of up to 12,000 words on a topic chosen by the student and approved by the Head of Department.
  5. Two Long Essays of up to 5,000 words each, or Project Report(s) or Laboratory Notebooks of up to 4,000 words each, one related to each of the optional special subjects.
  6. Two special subjects, chosen from a list published before the start of Term 4. Currently these comprise:
    • African Societies: Geographies of Development and Inequality
    • Biogeography
    • Climate Change, Impacts and Adaptation
    • Dryland Environments
    • Forensic Geography
    • The Geography of Post-Communist Russia and East Central Europe
    • Heritage Conservation and Management
    • The Political Geography of European Integration
    • The Quaternary Period
    • Geographies of Finance
    • Spaces of Politics
    • Transport
Assessment

Formative assessment occurs continuously through weekly tutorials, termly though college collections, periodically through seminar presentations and (in some special subjects) supervised laboratory and field work, and during Terms 6 and 7 though tutorial guidance in the preparation of the dissertation.

Summative assessment takes two forms: the marking of dissertations (submitted at the start of Term 8 and long essays, projects or notebooks (submitted at the start of Term 9) and in a written final examination of each core and special subject course during Term 9.

The Gibbs Prize is awarded to the student with the best overall performance taking into account overall aggregate mark and the number of first class papers; the Henry Oliver Beckitt and Herbertson Prizes are awarded to the best dissertations in Physical and Human Geography.

12. Support for Students and their Learning

  • Colleges provide accommodation and social facilities, personal academic and pastoral support through subject tutors and student advisors, basic medical support and hardship funding, and encourage excellence by awarding scholarships and book prizes for first class work in the first year examination or termly collections. Their library holdings reflect course requirements; computing and IT provision and training are given under the supervision of computing officers.
  • Advice on the range, content and complementarity of the optional elements of the course is readily available from college tutors, who act as general directors of study as well as providers of tutorials (with associated reading lists) and administrators of collections at the beginning and end of each term. The combination of these roles ensures that college tutors are able to give detailed and constructive guidance and support to student learning.
  • The university counselling service offers confidential help and advice to students, who approach it through their college welfare officers.
  • The University possesses excellent and extensive library services. These include the Radcliffe Science Library (which includes the Geography and Environment library); the main Bodleian Library; and departmental and other libraries in many related subjects: such as the Rhodes House Library (USA, British Empire and Commonwealth); the Bodleian Law Library, and the History and Social Science Libraries. Most Departmental and Faculty libraries allow borrowing. Most important periodicals are now fully available online via the Bodleian Libraries website.
  • The School of Geography and the Environment houses one large lecture theatre and three smaller lecture rooms, two seminar rooms, office and social spaces, and the following laboratories, with a supporting technician: luminescence dating; pollen analysis and palaeoecology; experimental weathering and rock testing; sediment analysis; chemical analysis. The laboratories of other university departments are accessible through the collaborative work of staff members.
  • The School of Geography and the Environment houses a range of IT and computing facilities, and dedicated technical support staff. The Bodleian Map Room provides computer mapping facilities and instruction in MAPINFO, and all colleges have computing and IT facilities and officers. OxLip (Oxford Libraries Information Platform) gives access to a wide range of bibliographic and other databases throughout the Oxford University computing domain. The Reader Services Librarian for Geography, located within the RSL, will provide instruction on the use of relevant databases.

13. Criteria for Admission

Applications are made to the colleges of the university, not the department. Each college has its own quota or target figure of places for geography students, depending on the number of geography tutors there. College tutors combine together in the Departmental Admissions Committee to ensure that criteria and standards of judgement are consistent across colleges, and that candidates are not disadvantaged by applying to Colleges with high ratios of applicants to places. Meetings of the Admissions Committee during the interview period ensure that excellent candidates in excess of the quotas of heavily subscribed colleges are interviewed by other colleges. Candidates who are offered places will be required to obtain grades of AAA (excluding General Studies) at A-level, or equivalent marks in Scottish Highers , the IB or other school leaving examination. Offers are made on the basis of students' academic records, the recommendation of their teachers, and their performance in interview. Applicants are asked to submit two pieces of written work prior to the interview period and to read one or two short passages of geographical writing immediately before their interview. These provide a basis for discussion in the interview, which is designed to discover those students who might best benefit from the intensive, tutorially based learning system employed in the university.

Applicants from outside the EEA are not required to attend for interview but may be interviewed by phone or Skype. Their school leaving examination record is converted to an A-level equivalent through tables provided by the University Admissions Office.

Students with physical disabilities can be interviewed and provided for at most colleges, some of which have extensive specialist provision for particular disabilities.

14. Methods for Evaluating and Improving the Quality and Standards of Learning

All newly appointed lecturers attend an Induction Course run by the University, and an experienced colleague acts as their mentor for the duration of the probationary period of their appointment.

Students may comment on their tutorial teaching during end of term college collections, and are encouraged to fill in annual report forms on their tutorials for the Senior Tutor of their college.

The School of Geography and the Environment provides a number of means for students to comment anonymously on lecture courses and other components of the programme.

  • Questionnaires are distributed for student evaluation of each lecture course. Completed questionnaires are handed in at the Departmental Office, before presentation to the Chair of the Undergraduate Teaching and Examinations Committee. Should these student evaluations give cause for concern over the teaching of a particular course or part of a course, this is discussed by the Undergraduate Teaching and Examinations Committee, in consultation with the member of staff concerned, before presentation of proposed responses to the Departmental Committee.
  • At the end of each academic year there is a questionnaire survey allowing students to give feedback on the whole academic year.
  • Elected student representatives comprise a majority on the Department's Joint Consultative Committee. There is a dedicated JCC email address to which all students can send suggestions for items for discussion at JCC. Matters move systematically from meetings of the JCC through the agenda of other appropriate Departmental Committees to meetings of the Departmental Committee.
  • Undergraduate members of the JCC act as student representatives on all appropriate committees of the Department including the Undergraduate Teaching and Examining Committee.

Proposals to change the teaching programme are discussed by the Undergraduate Teaching and Examinations Committee and Joint Consultative Committee of the Department before being formally accepted by the Departmental Committee, which must forward them through the Undergraduate Teaching Committee of the Social Sciences Division for approval by the Undergraduate Studies Committee of the University. Undergraduates are represented on all committees involved in the approval of changes.

Discussions of Examiners' Reports by the Undergraduate Teaching and Examination Committee and the Departmental Committee in Michaelmas Term are a customary source of proposals to change the structure and/or content of the teaching programme. Any reported suggestions of the External Examiners of the Honour School are particularly valued in this regard.

The University periodically reviews the teaching programmes of all Departments. The School of Geography and the Environment was last reviewed in 2009. A revision of the geography programme has been undertaken since 2009 and the revised first year course will be taught from October 2010.

Geography teaching was rated as 'excellent' by the TQA in 1995.

15. Regulation of Assessment

First Public Examination (Preliminary Examination)

The content prescribed for the First Year written examination and the structure of component papers are set out under 11.A.

A panel of four examiners is selected annually by the Undergraduate Teaching and Examinations Committee. Each examiner serves for two consecutive years, and one who is acting for a second year is elected as chairman. This panel appoints Assessors to assist with the setting and marking of particular papers (they are especially important for the optional papers). All examination answers are marked by one examiner or assessor. Expertise permitting, the marking of core papers is confined to examiners. Each section of each core paper is marked by a different examiner. The examiners meet to moderate marks, paying particular attention to those of candidates whose aggregate marks are clustered around the borderlines between classes, and those of candidates for whom a medical certificate or other information has been received from the Proctors.

Marks are awarded according to the following criteria:

70 and above (Distinction) - An excellent response to the question: coherent, informative and perceptive. The answer will make good use of a wide range of relevant literature and examples and will demonstrate evidence of reading beyond lectures. First class answers will show evidence of a critical understanding of a range of arguments and opinions and will use attributed examples to make points. They will be logically structured, well written, interesting to read and accurate.

50-69 (Pass) - An average to above average piece of work. The higher marks will be given to answers showing clear signs of hard work, and evidence of reading beyond lectures. The work will show an understanding of the arguments discussed and contain relevant examples. The lower mark will be given to answers that provide partial and incomplete responses to questions and that are largely based on essays already written for tutorials or which merely regurgitate lecture notes. They will, nevertheless, show some awareness of the literature and of relevant examples. Answers in this category may contain small factual errors.

40-49 (Pass) - A deficient response reveals some knowledge of the subject but shows limited sign of reading or thought. The link between the answer and the question set may be tenuous. Marks in this category may be awarded for such answers that also include serious errors of fact or interpretation.

0-39 (Fail) - The answer does not address the question. The piece is irrelevant, unstructured and poorly written. Incorrect grammar and spelling may obscure the meaning. Fail marks may also be given to very short attempts at a question. A zero mark will be given when no answer has been attempted.

Classification of Marks

Candidates must pass all papers to pass the Preliminary Examination. The pass mark is 40%. Candidate may re-take papers only once.

Candidates will be awarded a distinction when their average mark (after rounding up) is 66% or more, with two or more paper marks of 70% or above and no paper mark below 40%.

Candidates will be awarded a pass when they fail to meet the requirements for a Distinction but their average mark (after rounding up) is greater than or equal to 40%, provided that they have obtained 40% or more after rounding up in all four papers.

Candidates will be deemed to have failed when they have failed one or more papers, i.e. obtained less than 40% after rounding up. Where candidates have failed one or two papers they will be allowed one chance to re-sit those papers in order to try and pass the whole examination.

In exceptional circumstances (as provided for under the Decrees and Regulations) the Examiners may also award a Distinction or a Pass 'notwithstanding the conventions'.

Late submission of the Fieldwork Folder will result in an academic penalty of 10% or more being deducted from the mark. Late submission of the Geographical Controversies folder will result in an academic penalty of 10% or more being deducted from the overall Geographical Controversies paper mark. A satisfactory folder for the Geographical Controversies paper must be submitted in order to pass the examination as a whole.

Second public examination (Finals)

The content prescribed for the Third Year written examination and the structure of component papers are set out under 11.B.

Two External Examiners sit on the examination board, each serving for three years. They report directly to the Vice-Chancellor, and their comments are included in the annual Report of the Final Honour School Examiners, which is made available to staff and students and discussed at meetings of the Undergraduate Teaching and Examinations Committee and the Departmental Committee. Their primary role is to act as impartial advisors, providing the University and the School of Geography and the Environment with informed comment on two major aspects of the examination:

  1. To verify that standards are appropriate to the award, in part by comparison with the standards of comparable institutions, and to ensure that the assessment procedures and the regulations governing them are fair and otherwise appropriate.
  2. To ensure the fair conduct of the examination and the determination of awards, and that individual student performance has been judged in accordance with the regulations and conventions of the examining board. Their endorsement is given by signing the class list.
  3. External examiners report to the Vice-Chancellor on the following points:
    • The standards demonstrated by students;
    • The extent to which standards are appropriate for the award;
    • The design, structure and marking of assessments;
    • The procedures for assessment and examination;
    • Whether or not they had sufficient access to, and power to call upon, any material necessary to make their required judgements;
    • Students' performance in relation to their peers in comparable courses;
    • The coherence of the policies and procedures relating to external examiners and their consonance with the roles required of them;
    • The basis and rationale of any comparisons made;
    • The strengths and weaknesses of the students as a cohort;
    • The quality of teaching and learning which may be indicated by student performance.

Each of the six internal members of the examining board serves for three years. They are selected by the Undergraduate Teaching and Examinations Committee, elect one of their number as chairman, and appoint assessors to assist in the setting and marking of particular papers, dissertations and long essays. All assessed materials are double blind marked by examiners and/or assessors, who meet to moderate their separate marks before submission to the chairman of an agreed mark (arrived at on the basis of comment sheets filled in for each examination answer or component of a dissertation or long essay, and re-reading if necessary). Medical certificates and other information received from the Proctors are considered by an Examiners' Meeting before the final classification of marks.

Marks are awarded according to the following criteria:

70 and above (First Class) - An excellent response to the question: coherent, critical and perceptive. It is well-founded, making good use of a wide range of relevant literature and examples. It is analytically strong, structured around concepts rather than information, but uses a good range and depth of material to support its arguments. It reveals ability to form an independent opinion based on an evaluation of the evidence, and indicates a capacity for original thought on the part of the student. The argument is logically structured and the piece of work is well-written, convincing and interesting to read.

60-69 (Upper Second Class) - An above average piece of work, sound, well-presented and clearly structured. A response to the question which shows clear signs of hard work, and in particular offers evidence of reading. The work shows understanding of the arguments discussed and uses attributed examples to support the ideas advanced, with clear, cautious and accurate interpretation of the information/data presented. It reveals a reasonable breadth of knowledge but lacks notably original thought. The presentation is careful with few linguistic errors.

50-59 (Lower Second Class) - An average piece of work, providing a reasonable and relevant response to the question. It is largely based on essays already written for tutorials or regurgitation of lecture notes but shows some awareness of the literature and relevant examples, although it rarely cites specific references. Its response to the question is competent but partial and incomplete; alternatively, it is written virtually entirely form references or examples but fails to tie them together analytically. It provides a reasonably structured but pedestrian account, and includes some signs of confusion and/or small factual errors.

40-49 (Third Class) - A deficient response to the question, revealing some knowledge of relevant material but very little sign of reading or thought. The link between the arguments and the question set is tenuous. The answer is poorly organised and written and contains serious errors of fact or interpretation.

30-39. - Bare pass. A minimal response which reveals limited understanding of what the question is about and no evidence of reading of relevant literature. There are major errors of fact or interpretation and the answer is poorly written, structured and presented, and there may be only one redeeming feature preventing a fail mark.

20-29. - Fails to answer the question set. The piece is short, containing some superficially relevant information, but there is no attempt to link these to the question. Very limited evidence of structure in the answer.

10-19. - Has only one or two facts, and these are largely irrelevant and superficial. The answer is very short and disjointed, lacking any logical structure.

Below 10. - Lacks any factual detail and has no links to the question set. The answer lacks any structure and is very poorly written, with incorrect grammar and spelling obscuring the meaning.

0. - No answer.

Classification of Marks

The FHS examination consists of 8 papers. All papers are equally weighted for the purpose of calculating the aggregate mark.

Class I

A First shall be awarded if a candidate has:
4 or more agreed paper marks of 70 or above, of which at least 2 must be on written papers, and an aggregate of not less than 544.

Class II Division i

An Upper Second shall be awarded if a candidate fails to qualify for a first but has:
5 or more agreed paper marks of 60 or above and an aggregate of not less than 464

Class II Division ii

A Lower Second shall be awarded if a candidate fails to qualify for a superior class but has:
6 or more agreed paper marks of 50 or above and an aggregate of not less than 400.

Class III

A Third shall be awarded if a candidate fails to qualify for a superior class but has:
6 or more agreed paper marks of 40 or above and an aggregate of not less than 320.

Fail

Candidates whose marks fail do not satisfy any of the above criteria shall fail.

16. Indicators of Quality and Standards

The teaching programme of the School of Geography and the Environment was rated as 'Excellent' by the Teaching Quality Assessment of 1995.

External Examiners have consistently commended the School on the quality of performance in Finals examinations. (Indeed, it is largely their pressure that has led to an increase in the number of First Class degrees awarded).

Dissertations produced by undergraduates of the School are very successful in national competitions to adjudicate the best dissertations submitted to UK universities. In 2007, a student won the Alfred Steers Prize for the best student dissertation nationally.

In June 2007 The Institute for Advanced Learning applied a detailed questionnaire to finalists in Geography. The very high level of satisfaction with the course that was shown corresponds with the results of annual questionnaires administered by the School.

Less formal indicators of the quality and standard of the programme are presented by the high rates of success of students from the School in gaining postgraduate positions in the UK and North America, and by their success rates in all aspects of the job market.