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Beginner’s Guide to Grades, Projects, Exams, and Award Qualifications at University of London’s Online Bachelor’s of Computer Science

Hello /r/UniversityOfLondonCS!

A lot of new prospective students have joined our Discord (if you haven’t seen it yet, check it out!) – and I’ve noticed a lot of questions regarding the grades and assessment structure of this degree.

All of the information here is available in the University of London General Regulations, as well as the degree-specific Programme Regulations – but the documents are long and can be a bit obscure. Hence, I’ve decided to write a casual beginner’s guide to how grades in this degree work.

This guide will take the form of an inverse-pyramid: I’ll start by talking about the general organization of the degree as a whole, and then the grading and assessments of a typical module, and then finally the structure of a typical exam.

General Structure of the Degree

The University of London’s Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science (w/ Academic Instruction from Goldsmiths College) is a UK undergraduate degree, composed of 22 modules (i.e. classes) plus an additional Final Project. The modules are divided according to their RQF Level. There are:

Each subsequent RQF Level indicates an increase in academic rigour, and ‘difficulty’. Hence, the modules are not all worth the same, but are weighted towards the more advanced levels. The specific ratio is 1:3:5, applied to Level 4, Level 5, Level 6. When divided according to the number of modules at each level, we arrive at the following distribution:

… of your Degree’s final grade. This means that if you screw up early, you shouldn’t despair. Getting only 52/100 on a Level 4 Web Dev module (like I did… RIP) will not matter too much towards your final grade, as long as you do better for the latter modules.

Every module is worth 15 credits, and the Final Project is worth 30 credits. You are required to pass 360 credit’s worth of modules in order to be awarded the highest qualification of the programme: a Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science.

Intermediate Qualifications and Exit Qualifications

Note that I worded the previous sentence in a very specific fashion. This is because the degree programme has multiple eligible qualifications, of which the Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science is only the highest one:

These additional qualifications are called Intermediate Qualifications or Exit Qualifications, depending on whether or not you choose to apply for them as you go along the programme, or apply for them as you decide to leave the programme. For example, if you are aiming for a B.Sc, you’re still welcome to apply for an Cert.H.E. as soon as you have 120 credits and keep studying onwards. The process is not automatic, and you will have to pay an administrative fee – but a student can hypothetically graduate with all 3 qualifications, if they choose to.

Structure of Assessments within a module

Now that I’ve given a sufficient overview of the degree programme as a whole, go into further detail about grades and assessments in the typical class. Information for this section primarily comes from the Programme Specification.

Typically, there are two general types of modules. I’ll call them “exam-based modules”, or “project-based modules” – even though those aren’t their real names.

Assessment in Exam-based Modules

Exam-based modules are typically those that are math or theory heavy. There is still a project component to them, but the project components are only formative, and don’t count towards the module’s final grade. Instead, your module grade will be weighted in the following manner:

This means that studying for the end-of-term exam is very important, as it is worth half of one’s grade.

Assessment in Project-based Modules

Project-based modules are typically those that are skill-oriented, like a Programming class, or a Web Development class. These do not have an in-person exam, so you won’t have to travel to a physical exam centre at the end of the term. Instead, the module grade will be weighted either as a 50:50 split, or a 30:70 split.

In our Introduction to Programming class, we had half a term’s worth of online quizzes and activities, which was worth 50 percent of our final grade. Then for the second half of our term, we didn’t have any graded quizzes at all. Instead, we had to complete a video game project – which was worth the other 50 percent of our grade.

In our Web Development class, for the first half of our term we had quizzes which were worth only 30% of our final grade. For the second half of our term, we had one big website project, which was worth the remaining 70% of our final grade.

The Structure of the ‘Take-home’ and End-of-Term Exams.

Finally, I will talk a bit about the way exams work, in the so-called Exam-based modules. Modules are typically 22 ‘weeks’ long, with a mid-term at the end of week 10, where everything from weeks 1 to 10 are due (this applies to all modules, and not just exam-based ones). In exam-based modules, there will typically be an take-home test due at the week 10 midterm, which is worth 50% of the online coursework component of the module. Recall that the online coursework is worth 50% of the module’s final grade, and the take-home exam is worth half of that: this means the take-home exam is worth 25% of your module’s total grade!

Take-home exams (midterm)

Update: This section has been updated and expanded, following feedback from the students-only Slack channel.

The take-home exams are due at the end of week 10 of the module, effectively making it somewhat like a midterm. Usually the take-home exams are made available plenty of time in advance though, so they can be completed at your leisure without a strict time limit.

Most take-home exams are either in the form of a PDF, or as an interactive page on Coursera. When it is available as a PDF, generally people would download the file, and complete all the questions on a piece of paper (or Word document), and upload the scanned results or exported PDF back on to Coursera.

When it is in the form of an interactive Coursera page, typically there will be multiple text-boxes and upload buttons. Generally some questions will require only text-based responses, which have text-boxes provided for them, and other questions will require an upload of a scanned document or PDF.

The midterm for the (now obsolete) Numerical Mathematics module was an interactive Coursera page. Someone saved a text-only PDF copy of the webpage, which I have attached here to serve as an example of how a midterm might look like.

Final exam (end-of-term)

Update: I have uploaded our sample paper for the (now obsolete) Numerical Mathematics module, as an example on how the exam is structured. Click the link to view it as an imgur album!

The final exam is worth 50% of your module’s grade, and this must be completed at a physical exam centre, in a controlled environment. A lot of prospective students are worried about finding an exam centre near them – but fear not, there are many University of London approved exam centres around the world. There are exam centres in countries like Afghanistan, Botswana, Taiwan, or even tiny islands like St Helena. The University of London has a massive spreadsheet with all the exam centres and their contact information:

A module’s exam takes the form of one exam paper, typically with 2 hours of examination time allocated. The exam is worth a total of 100 points, with individual questions being typically worth 4 to 5 points each. The exam paper contains 2 parts, that are:

Part A is usually the “easy” part of the exam paper, but each question is also worth only a few points.

Part B is the hard part of the exam, and generally you are given a choice of 3 questions to answer. You are required to answer only 2 of the 3 questions, and the question is usually one that has many subsections and steps, where you have to show your work throughout. Each question is thematically different – for example, in the Numerical Mathematics module, you might be given a choice of a question on graphical function transformations, a question on modular arithmetic, and a question on set theory. Usually, people would read through all three questions, and choose the two that they are the least bad at.

Practice exams (and how they’re usually late)

Usually, a practice test that is identical to the end-of-term final exam will be released before the actual exam. HOWEVER, the UoL administration has not always been the best at releasing these practice exams in a timely fashion – and this is one of the largest sources of frustration for enrolled students.

Because this degree programme is so new, there isn’t a source of past exams and past practice exams that students can count upon when they are studying. Although practice exams are supposed to be made available for students, they are generally released very late in the term.

Practice papers have been released anywhere from 1 month before the actual exam (stress! stress!) to LITERALLY THE NIGHT BEFORE THE EXAM. Hopefully, the situation will have improved by the time other students enroll, as past exams are made available as practice material. However, for the first cohort of students (that includes me!), the timely release of these practice exams have been a significant critique of the programme.

Anyways! This completes my guide to grades, assessments, projects, and qualifications at the University of London’s Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science programme. I hope I gave you all a reasonable overview of how the structure of the course is laid out.

As of always, if you have any further questions, you are welcome to ask me – or visit the student-run Discord server. All of the information from this guide is sourced from the various formal policy and regulation documents that are available from the University of London website. For further reading, you may visit them (as linked below):

Sources and Further Reading