Marking

The IRP has two marked deliverables, each with its own criteria - see below for details.

Final mark calculation¶

Your project plan is worth 5% of your total IRP mark, and your final submission will be worth 95%. Your final IRP mark will be calculated as:

(Project Plan Mark) + (Final Submission Mark × 0.95).

For example, if you received 4 points for your project plan and score 70 on your final submission, your total IRP mark would be:

4 + (70 × 0.95) = 4 + 66.5 = 70.5%.

Late submission¶

According to the Policy on Late Submission of Assessment, the following penalties apply:

Late submissions may still be marked to provide feedback to the student, if the department considers it educationally helpful and the work was submitted within a reasonable time.

• If a student has an approved deadline extension, the penalty is based on the extended deadline.

• The timing is based on calendar days, not working days.

• The same late submission policy applies to all assessed components of the project, including the academic integrity declaration.

Complaints and appeals¶

The IRP mark is final. An appeal cannot be made on the basis of disagreement with the academic judgment of the examiners. We recognise that you may be disappointed with your mark, but requests for remarking will not be considered. Appeals are only permitted if you believe that university policies and procedures were not followed correctly. Appeals cannot be made simply because you feel you performed better than the awarded mark suggests - this is called academic judgment. Similarly, if you wish to raise a complaint about academic provision, it must normally be made no later than three weeks before the affected examination or assessment takes place.

For full details, please see the Academic Appeals guidance. A full list of complaints and appeal procedures are available on the Complaints, appeals and discipline webpage. In addition, you can seek support and guidance if you are considering making an appeal, such as from the Imperial College Union Advice Centre or your personal tutor. In the first instance, please discuss your concerns with your supervisors, module coordinator, and the course director.

Feedback¶

Your final IRP submission was marked independently by two examiners, and the final mark was agreed in the presence of the moderator after the viva. Please note that the written feedback you received was most likely submitted before the viva, and therefore may not fully reflect all the points from your presentation or discussion that took place during the viva itself. If you have any questions about your feedback, contact your examiners directly (staff who were present in your viva).

Missing feedback: The IRP does its best to collect all written feedback from examiners as soon as possible. To ensure the release of provisional marks on time, however, it may be necessary to release marks before all feedback has been received. If your feedback is missing, please contact your supervisors or examiners directly. We will not continue to chase missing feedback after provisional marks have been released - it should be communicated directly to students by the examiners.

Feedback is a learning tool, not a justification for the mark. Written feedback is intended to help you understand your strengths and areas for improvement, and to support your development as a researcher. It should not be read as a line-by-line explanation of how the mark was determined. The mark reflects the examiners’ overall academic judgment of your work as a whole, and the feedback is offered in that spirit — to guide your future learning, not to defend or account for every aspect of the grade awarded.

After the marks are released...¶

This section summarises some of the relevant information from the university’s policies; we strongly encourage you to consult the official student handbook and university policies for full details. In addition, it is not the IRP team’s responsibility to inform you of these policies - it is your responsibility to be aware of them.

No numerical marks can be released by teaching staff. Registry is the only source of official results, and marks will appear on your final transcript after the exam board.

IRP and degree classification¶

The Independent Research Project (IRP) is weighted at 30 ECTS, making it the single most heavily weighted module in your MSc programme. Its mark therefore contributes more to your overall ECTS-weighted mean than any other module.

In addition, your IRP mark is directly considered in the degree classification decision. To achieve a given classification, you must meet the required threshold in both your overall ECTS-weighted mean and in your IRP mark. For example, to be awarded a Merit classification, both the overall ECTS-weighted mean and the IRP mark must be 60 or above.

Example: ECTS-weighted mean¶

Suppose you have three modules:

• Module A: 5 ECTS, mark = 55

• Module B: 5 ECTS, mark = 60

• Module C: 7.5 ECTS, mark = 78

The weighted mean is calculated as:

(5 × 55) + (5 × 60) + (7.5 × 78) / (5 + 5 + 7.5) = 1160 / 17.5 = 66.29

Borderline cases¶

As stated in the latest version of the handbook and university policies, the Board of Examiners applies faculty-approved criteria to decide degree classifications. Except where a student has an accepted mitigating circumstances claim, promotion is considered only in the following cases (after mark moderation, if any):

• Students at the Merit/Distinction boundary will receive Distinction if their project mark is 70 or above and their overall ECTS-weighted average is at or above 69.50%.

• Students at the Pass/Merit boundary will receive Merit if their project mark is 60 or above and their overall ECTS-weighted average is at or above 59.50%.

Since overall marks may be moderated upwards or downwards by the Board, teaching staff cannot discuss or confirm any final degree classifications before the meeting takes place.

Final transcripts and certificates¶

Once your grades have been confirmed by the Board of Examiners, they are sent to Registry, who issue the official degree certificates and transcripts. These typically become available online via MyImperial about 2-3 weeks after the exam board (late November - early December), although occasionally it may take longer. Registry will email you when they are ready. The date of conferral of your degree certificate will likely be 1 December.

Teaching staff have no influence over this process, nor can they provide you with unofficial numerical results before Registry releases them.