Mitigating Circumstances

Mitigating (or extenuating) Circumstances are unforeseen events or circumstances which have a significant negative impact on your ability to successfully complete, or study effectively in preparation for, summative assessment tasks.

The University provides comprehensive information regarding what counts as mitigating circumstances and what evidence you should provide available here: Guidance on Evidence for Mitigating Circumstances.

Extensions to assessment deadlines

Self-Certification

Self-certifying is your main route for obtaining an extension for minor illness, short-term family emergency/caring responsibilities etc. You can self-certify for up to 5 working days before the deadline without needing to provide evidence via the Personal Circumstances tab in Tabula which may provide you with a 5 day extension for eligible assignments. Please note the following:

Not all assignments are eligible for self-certification. In particular the project and any module resubmissions are ineligible for self-certification, but also some module assessment components.
You can only self-certify on TWO occasions per year, or, if registered on a 12 month course, during your registration period.
You can extend the deadline ONCE for a particular assessment, so if you use 2 self-certifications in a row, this will only extend the deadline by up to a maximum of 5 working days.
Cold/Flu virus: For cold/flu viruses please use the self-certification method. In the hopefully rare eventuality that you are seriously unwell and require medical attention you may apply for an evidenced extension, uploading your Drs note as evidence.
Dates: The dates you enter should reflect the time that you were e.g. ill for, not the expected extension time frame. In order to successfully extend a deadline the original deadline must fall within the 2 dates you provide. If you enter dates that don't cover the original deadline the deadline will not be extended and you will lose one self-certification use.
Resits: It is not possible to self-certify for an extension to a resit deadline. Only evidenced extensions will be considered.

Evidenced extensions

In the event of exceptional mitigating circumstances students may apply for an extension to the submission date of an assessment before the deadline, providing suitable evidence. Extension requests received after the original submission deadline will not be considered. Please follow the process detailed in your course handbook.

For part-time students, as the length of your course is designed to allow sufficient time whilst in employment, normal pressure of work is not an eligible reason. If you can clearly demonstrate higher than normal workload (e.g. >55 hours per week) for an extended period (e.g. >3 weeks during the affected period) and you want to request an extension, you must provide robust evidence to support this.

Declaring Mitigating Circumstances AFTER the deadline (e.g. to appeal a late penalty)

If you were unable to request an extension in advance, but there was a valid reason for late submission, you can appeal to the Board of Examiners' mitigation panel for late penalties to be waived.
To do so open Tabula, go to 'My student profile' and then Personal Circumstances'.
A valid reason must be circumstances that were outside your control. For example uploading an incorrect file would NOT be a valid reason. Please do not make a submission unless you believe your reasons to be valid.
Please note that the Board of Examiners' mitigation panel meet at set intervals throughout the year so you may not receive the outcome of mitigation appeals straight away. Please allow up to 8 weeks for an outcome.

Please note that while it is acknowledged that cultural attitudes to the disclosure of personal information may vary, students are expected to fully disclose all matters they wish to have taken into consideration by the Board of Examiners. If you are unsure whether something that has happened to you, or to someone close to you, is eligible to be considered as a Mitigating Circumstance, it is likely to be eligible if it was unforeseeable or beyond your control and if it also had a significant impact on your ability to prepare for or complete the assessment in question.

Potential Outcomes

Mitigating Circumstances can never result in the changing of marks for individual modules or assessments; however, what the Board might allow, if the circumstances are determined to have sufficient impact, is one or more of the following:

additional time to complete an assessment
waiving of late (or other) penalties
resubmission(s), possibly allowed as a first attempt (and hence not capped as is the normal convention)