Understanding Your Marksheet

Introduction

After you have your work assessed for a unit at a formal assessment event, you will receive a marksheet for the assessment of that work. Each marksheet will include identifying student and course details, an assessor submission checklist, a summative assessment mark, assessment criteria and range statements, and summative feedback.

This guidance can help you to understand what this information is, what you need in order to pass, and how to learn from your assessment.

Please note the following terms which may be used interchangeably within this guidance for your reference:

• Formal assessment - This may also be referred to as summative assessment or an assessment event.

• Summative assessment mark - This may also be referred to as a mark, a grade, a result, or an outcome.

• Summative feedback - This may also be referred to as overall comments and feed forward.

Student and Course Details

In this first section of your marksheet, you will find a table of information that confirms who this marksheet is for, which unit they have had assessed and at which event. There’s also a field to confirm whether the marksheet is for a resubmission or not. For the majority of OCA students, this field will say ‘no’, but if you have resubmitted work for formal assessment, this field will say ‘yes’.

Assessor Submission Checklist

This section of the marksheet allows an assessor to confirm if they have been able to assess your submission. It asks the question: 

Were the assessment requirements of this unit correctly presented and available in the submission?

Which in the majority of cases will be answered with a ‘Yes’, meaning that the assessor could carry out the assessment of the work submitted.

In a small number of cases, this question may be answered with a ‘No’. Please see the section of this guidance regarding ‘Failure to submit for assessment’ for more information.

Summative Assessment Mark

In the summative assessment mark section, you will see a number given as a percentage. This is the number that the assessor has awarded the work submitted overall. It is calculated by averaging the total of the numbers given to each assessment criteria.

Assessment Criteria

The assessment criteria section of the marksheet is made up of several pieces of information. The OCA assessment criteria are used by assessors to ‘grade’ the work a student submits for assessment, measuring how well they have met their unit’s learning outcomes. To do this, they utilise the grade bandings and range statements.

Grade Bandings

Below are the bandings used across all undergraduate courses nationally:

• First (1)

• 90 - 100

• 80 - 89

• 70 - 79

• Upper Second (2.1)

• 60 - 69

• Lower Second (2.2)

• 50 - 59

• Third (3)

• 40 - 49

• Fail

• 30 - 39

• 0 - 29

Range Statements

For each assessment criteria, you will be provided with a range statement that indicates where your work sits within the overall grade bandings in relation to that assessment criteria. These provide some additional narrative and can be distinguished from one another as indicated in the following list:

• 90 - 100 Exceptional, extensive, deep level

• 80 - 89 Outstanding, accomplished, in-depth level, highly confident

• 70 - 79 Excellent, confident, comprehensive level

• 60 - 69 Very good, thorough, strong level

• 50 - 59 Good, sound, competent, growing level

• 40 - 49 Reasonable, adequate, basic, broad level

• 30 - 39 Limited, rudimentary, surface level, narrow, incomplete

• 0 - 29 Inadequate, poor, little or no level

Summative Feedback

Finally, the summative feedback section of your marksheet contains overall comments and feed forward. Summative feedback is an important concluding point to the end of your course. It is there to help reflect on what has been assessed, and provide pointers to how you might progress.

Summative feedback should be well-grounded, constructive, and challenging:

• Well-grounded - your feedback should reference the work presented for assessment.

• Challenging - it should provide clear and achievable pointers on how you can develop beyond the course through your feed forward.

• Constructive - your feedback needs to balance a supportive tone of voice with honest scrutiny of the work. It is important to receive a critique of your work alongside a clear sense of what you can do to improve.

Passing

To pass, all assessment requirements for the unit must be submitted, and that work needs to meet all of the learning outcomes of that unit. A summative assessment mark of 40 or above is required to pass.

Failing

A summative assessment mark of 0 - 39 represents a fail outcome for the assessment of a unit. There are a couple of different reasons for receiving a fail mark at assessment, which are:

• A failure to submit for assessment (0)

• And a failure to meet the learning outcomes (1-39)

Ordinarily, if you do fail at assessment you will be offered the opportunity to resubmit for a capped mark. This means that the maximum mark you could then achieve is 40, which is a passing mark. If you do have an opportunity to resubmit for assessment, this will usually happen at the next available assessment event. 

If you were to fail at assessment for a second time, ordinarily you will be offered the opportunity to retake your unit - that is to re-enrol onto the same unit, study it in full, and then submit for a final assessment of your work with a capped mark.

Failure to Submit for Assessment

A failure to submit for assessment is usually characterised by receiving a summative assessment mark of 0. This result would be explained by the Assessor Submission Checklist section of the marksheet. This section would contain a ‘yes’ rather than the typical ‘no’ response, and should also contain either an explanatory statement or further information about why the assessors could not carry out the assessment of your unit.

This usually happens when a student fails to submit any of their assessment requirements when invited to do so at an assessment event.

This can also happen when a student fails to submit one or more of the assessment requirements for their unit. For example, if you did not submit a reflective evaluation or presentation for your unit, or submitted no selection of creative work, the assessor would be unable to assess any of the work you have submitted and so award the 0 fail mark.

Failure to Meet Learning Outcomes

A failure to meet the learning outcomes of a unit is usually characterised by receiving a summative assessment mark of 1-39.

A mark of 30-39 represents a partial fail, in which specific elements are below the standard to pass.

A mark of 30 or below represents a more fundamental fail in which a considerable amount of work is below standard; this may also be called an irretrievable fail.