Proposed key changes to Warwick self-certifications programme

The University is conducting a consultation with the Warwick student and staff cohort on new key proposed changes to the University’s self-certification and mitigating circumstances programme. If the policies are finalised, the cohort will see changes being rolled out around January 2027.

Raj Hacker, the SU Education Officer, has summarised the proposed changes as follows:

1. The number of allowed self-certifications has gone up from two to four for an academic year
2. There will be standardisation of the self-certification process across all departments
3. These certifications would apply to specific assignments rather than periods
4. The self-certification can be applied up to 24 hours after the assignment is due
5. Reducing the number of days that cover an extension period from five to three business days

The process will be renamed from ‘self-certification’ to ‘evidence-free extension’

Elaborating on the third point, the University is proposing that self-certifications, instead of applying generally to a time period and extending multiple assignments at once, will now apply to one specific assignment for each certification. Within the University’s brief overview of the proposal, they state several more things of note regarding the proposed changes made:

• The process will be renamed from ‘self-certification’ to ‘evidence-free extension’
• The process will be available from three working days before the assignment deadline and up to 24 hours after
• It is compulsory for departments to allow this process, except where specific exemptions apply (such as in-class tests, groupwork, dissertations, time-dependent assessments, etc.)

Finally, the University had also proposed other changes to other extensions and marking. These include:

• A maximum extension of two weeks/10 University working days to be applied to evidence-based extensions
• Any extension requested beyond 10 University working days to be considered individually by a senior tutor or nominee
• Formalising marking turnaround as 20 University working days
• Removing A, B, C severity markings for mitigating circumstances and instead replacing it with an accept/reject grading model

More information on the proposal, including the consultation package, the feedback form, as well as the brief overview of the proposal can be found here.