The scope of the project is to implement 

1. self certifications for extensions limited to 3 within an academic year,
2. application of other exceptional circumstance applications by students,
3. make technical improvements as prioritised

Benefits: 

Schools are seeing a steep rise in percentages of extensions received on assessments, which has affected marking and moderation processes. Furthermore, students have to wait until the end of semester to receive decisions from BoE on late penalty waivers. With this policy, the associated service and system adaptations will lead to student and staff experiences improvements by 

(1) reducing numbers of extension applications to only those which are exceptional rather than routine; the current process is being used to manage time, impacting on marking and moderation processes, 

(2) improving academic rigor in allowing students to prepare for assessments and only using support options such as self-certifications when needed, 

(3) Instant approvals for self-certified extensions available to students within the academic year,

(4) removing staff effort required to approve self-certified extension applications, and 

(5) improving student experience through consistency by removing the risk for schools seeking local arrangements. Not completing centralized system changes that are consistent for all schools may result in different responses to student ESC applications within the different schools and deaneries.  

Technical continuous improvements are required for maintaining a quality and robust service by  

(6) improving the holding page for planned downtimes: will allow to properly inform students and staff about services availability 

(7) improving errors handling: will enhance a) student experience:  clearer information during incidents , and b) staff experience to better troubleshoot and diagnose the root causes of service incidents 

(8) archiving and deleting elapsed cases: will address data protection issues and reduce costs for storage in database (MongoDB)