Question: What are Academic Alerts?
The Academic Alert system replaced the original ‘Permission to Proceed’ system where students had permission to proceed with a module or they did not. If students had their permission to proceed removed then they were asked to leave the module. It was considered that this system may be unduly harsh and did not take into account the range of circumstances that students may be experiencing. The new Academic Alert system was designed to be more informative for the student, with a range of alerts ranging in severity. The alerts were originally numbered 1 through 10:
- Alerts 1-4 being advisory (including problems with spelling and math) which were designed to help the student improve the quality of their submissions. It can be noted that alerts 1-4 are handled within the school and are not handled via MMS.
- Alerts 5-7 are associated with absence and encouraged students to contact student services if they were experiencing problems, and highlighted the effect the absence was having on the student’s studies.
- Academic alerts 8 and 9 are severe and indicated the student was in danger of failing their module.
- Alert 10 effectively informs the student that they have not completed enough of the required work for the module and have been failed. The student can continue to submit work and undertake the exam but this will not be marked unless the alert is removed.
Academic alerts are associated with a module and are created on the Academic Alerts’ tab on the Module Overview. Academic Alerts can be viewed for a student on the ‘Academic Alerts’ tab on the Module Overview, ‘Academic Alerts’ tab on the User details page and on the ‘Academic Alert Records’ page (first link in the ‘Assessment’ section on the School Page).