Assessment
Written work
Unless otherwise instructed, students should submit assignments and reports to the Front Office at the School of Botany, and should collect a dated receipt.
Written work submitted for assessment in the School of Botany must meet the requirements of satisfactory expression (including spelling, punctuation, grammar and structure) presentation, illustration and referencing. The Learning Skills Unit, Ground Floor, 723 Swanston St Carlton, (telephone 8344 0930) is able to assist you if you have trouble meeting these requirements. Reports and assignments should normally be presented as word-processed documents, and should always be legible and clearly laid out. All references to published work must be fully acknowledged and included in a consistently-formatted bibliography.
Grading
Marked assignments and reports will normally be returned within two weeks of submission. As well as a grade, students will receive constructive criticism, usually in the form of written comments, on their work.
The School of Botany aims to clearly recognise and reward different levels of achievement. A fail grade indicates that the minimum standards have not been met in one or more of the following areas:
- understanding of the relevant subject matter
- relevance to the topic
- coherent development of ideas
- expression
- insufficient, inadequate or incomplete illustration
- acknowledgement of sources
A pass grade (50-64%) recognises work that competently meets all the requirements of the task.
Undergraduate Honours grades (65% and above) recognise work that more than competently meets the requirements. First-class honours (80% and above) is reserved for excellent and outstanding work.
Late assignments and extensions
Students must submit assignments and reports by the due date. Extensions due to unexpected circumstances may be granted at the subject coordinator's discretion, if arranged in advance of the deadline. Extensions will not exceed two weeks unless a formal application for special consideration is also made to the Faculty of Science. In these cases, you still need to negotiate approval to vary subject requirements with the relevant subject coordinator.
Work submitted late will be penalised five percent of the total possible score for each working day late, until a pass level is reached, then marked to pass level. For example, a report worth 20 marks will be marked out of 19 if submitted one day late, 18 if two days late etc. If it is submitted ten or more days late, the highest possible score will be 10/20.
Plagiarism
It is University policy that cheating by students in any form is not permitted, and that work submitted for assessment must be the independent work of the student concerned (or in group projects, of the students concerned) (Regulation 12.2.10, reprinted in the Student Diary). For further information see the University's web site:
Academic Honesty and Plagiarism
Plagiarism, or copying of somebody else's work without acknowledgement, is not permitted. Allowing someone else to copy your work for assessment under their name is also illegal. Plagiarism may take several forms:
- direct duplication by copying another's work from a book, article, web site or assignment
- close paraphrasing of another's work, with only minor changes to the wording
- piecing together of parts of another's work into a new whole
- submitting one's own work that has been previously submitted for assessment in another subject
- producing work in conjunction with other people (for example peers, former students or tutors) which is submitted as your own independent work.