Submitting your Claim

You should submit a Mitigating Circumstances (MC) claim immediately after your impacted assessment(s) and by the published MC deadline.

You should not normally submit an MC claim before you have completed your assessment(s).

You should submit your Mitigating Circumstances claim via the online form on Student Self-Service.

The online form has been designed to ensure that submitting your claim is simple and straightforward. You will be taken through the process, step by step, to ensure that all relevant information has been collected and provided. Once you have started an MC claim, you are able to save and return to your claim at any point before submitting.

You will only be able to submit your claim once all required sections of the form have been completed.

You should include the following in your Mitigating Circumstances (MC) claim:

• As much detail as possible of your circumstance(s) including dates the circumstance(s) occurred, relationship with other parties and/or the sequence of events.
• A full explanation outlining how your circumstance(s) has impacted your academic performance in your assessment(s).
• Which assessments were impacted by the circumstance(s) outlined in your claim by selecting the relevant components on the online form.
• If you can provide evidence that will verify and support your claim, you should include this. However, we recognise that it can be challenging to gather evidence for some claims so please submit your claim anyway.

If you submit an MC claim after the published MC deadline, then your claim will only be considered if your School can compile the relevant information in time for the associated MC Panel. If your School is unable to compile information in time for a Semester 1 MC Panel, then the late claim will be carried forward and considered by the Semester 2 MC Panel. However, late claims submitted for the Semester 2, Special Assessment Period or Semester 3 MC Panels cannot be carried forward as these will be followed by Programme and Review Boards at which marks are fixed.

MC claims submitted after the related Programme and Review Board meetings will not be accepted under any circumstances. Instead, students may make use of the Academic Appeals procedure under Regulation XIV where there are grounds for appeal. Such appeals must normally be submitted within 10 working days of the publication of the decision of the Programme Board or Review Board. You will be required to demonstrate that you had good cause for not submitting a Mitigating Circumstances claim prior to the relevant deadline.

You should normally only submit a single Mitigating Circumstances (MC) claim. If you have been impacted by multiple circumstances your MC claim should describe how each circumstance has negatively impacted your academic performance in your assessment(s).

However, it might be more appropriate to submit separate MC claims in the following scenarios:

• You have experienced a set of circumstances that have negatively impacted on one, or more assessment(s) and experienced a further set of unrelated circumstances that have had a negative impact on a different set of assessments.
• Your circumstances have impacted you across multiple Semesters or the Special Assessment Period (SAP)
• Something unexpected has occurred since submitting a previous claim.

Any student suspected of submitting a fraudulent MC claim and/or falsifying or fabricating supporting evidence may be charged with a disciplinary offence under University Ordinance XVII (Conduct and Discipline of Students).