they have never considered how modules were assessed, so I don’t think this is important.
What is important is if candidates are having to put in up to 50% of the effort (eg 60 credits vs 120 credits) that other candidates are putting in.
Firms won’t have the time or effort to consider policies/weighting etc, especially where many of them are optional. The only thing they can consider is how many credits an individual sat in one year.
For me, I’d rather see a candidate get a relatively stable 60 across 6 modules, rather than 70 across 3. I suspect many recruiters will feel the same.
Just thought I'd share what my current situation is, being a final year non-law student at the University of Nottingham.
This year I am doing 6 full year modules including a dissertation. What my course, and the Faculty of Arts at Nottingham, has decided to do is that any module that had completed 40% of the module's assessments prior to the 15th March then those grades would become the grades for the whole module, i.e. 40% would now be upscaled to 100% and you would not sit any further assessments.
Obviously, that is great if you have done well in that first 40% which, thankfully, I had but for those who hadn't and were relying on later assessments i.e. exams to bring them up, then they are in a bit of a tough situation. Equally, if you had yet to do any assessment for a module, which is the case for me in three of mine, then these assessments/essays (because they were originally supposed to be worth 40% of the module) are now worth 100% of the module, just like my dissertation. Thankfully, lecturers and tutors are now offering to read drafts of these essays due to the added importance they now have which has given a lot of people peace of mind.
I know that Nottingham law school is moving all its exams online and to open book whereby finalists have 7 working days to complete their answers and upload them to the online learning platform Turnitin which seems to be the fairest way I think at this point and to ensure that the results have a fair degree of integrity and that students still need to put in a good deal of effort.
Nottingham also has the no detriment policy, from which you can calculate your 'safety-net' mark which takes into account your second year marks already achieved. The less assessed work you had completed in your final year up to mid-March, the more your safety-net mark would be based on your second year result, if that makes sense?
I think Nottingham has done a pretty reasonable job given the circumstances, and am happy from a selfish perspective that at least for me it's worked in my favour as I have a guaranteed mid-to-high 2.1 with the possibility of getting a first if my remaining essays and dissertation go well. It's just a huge shame we, as finalists, won't get to celebrate the fruits of our last three/four years of hard work
