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Special Considerations, Special Arrangements And Simple Extensions

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences assesses student requests for assistance relating to completion of assessment in accordance with the regulations set out in Part 5 of the Academic Board’s policy on Assessment and Examination of Coursework. A summary of the regulations is outlined below. Students are expected to become familiar with the University’s policies and Faculty procedures relating to Special Consideration and Special Arrangements.

Students can apply for:

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Based upon the answers you provide as you do your application, the system will determine for you which type of assistance may apply in your case.

Timeframes for submitting an application

Applications for Special Consideration must be made as soon as possible and within five working days of the due date of the assessment. Where circumstances prevent this, a student may still apply but must provide a reasonable case for the delay in submitting their application.

Applications for Special Arrangements should be made at the beginning of semester with regard to religious beliefs or commitments relating to moveable feasts, prayer or worship times, or with regard to other requirements of a student’s religion. Applications for other types of commitment should be made as soon as possible after being notified of a requirement to be absent from the University. With regard to examinations held during University-wide examination periods, applications should be submitted within two weeks of the examination timetable.

Special Consideration

The University’s assessment practices are designed to ensure that conditions are fair to all students, as consistent as possible, and that individual students are not disadvantaged by adverse personal circumstances beyond their control or by the activities of other students.

Only illness or misadventure during a semester or occurring at the time of an examination will warrant Special Consideration for academic performance. The academic judgement as to whether Special Consideration will be granted will depend upon both the nature of the illness or misadventure and its timing with respect to the assessment. For instance a short acute illness supported by a Professional Practitioner Certificate the day of the examination would normally be accepted as grounds for Special Consideration, but the same illness occurring several weeks before an assessment would be unlikely to be considered acceptable grounds.

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Special Consideration will NOT be granted in the following instances

  1. occasional brief or trivial illness of a one or two week duration that occur one week or more before an assessment is due or an examination undertaken;
  2. to balance workloads from other units of study, disciplines or Faculties. It is expected that in semester assessment tasks in units of study, disciplines or Faculties will normally be timetabled to enable orderly completion. However in cases where this is not possible, students are encouraged in the first three weeks of semester to develop an individual study timetable.
  3. information and communications technology-related problems, except where they could not have been prevented, avoided or the effects minimised by reasonable diligence on the part of the student; and
  4. jury service, military service, employment of an essential nature, national sporting, religious or cultural commitments and other unforeseen events are dealt with as Special Arrangements.
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Simple Extensions

Under the provisions of Special Consideration, and application may be made for a Simple Extension of less than 5 working days. Simple Extensions can only be approved for non-examination based assessment tasks.

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Primary Carers

Students who are primary carers can apply for Special Consideration based upon illness, injury or misadventure on the part of the person for whom they bear responsibility if the illness, injury or misadventure affects their ability to prepare for or perform an assessment.

Groupwork

In the case of groupwork where one or more students submits an application for Special Consideration or a Simple Extension, the remaining members of the group can also submit applications for Special Consideration or a Simple Extension as a form of misadventure if their ability to complete the task as originally assigned is impacted.

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Students with a disability

Students with a disability who wish to obtain reasonable adjustments for their disability must register with and seek the support of the Disability Services Office.

A student who is registered with the Disability Services Office, and has in place reasonable adjustments for a disability, may also make a separate claim for special consideration due to illness or misadventure.

Special Arrangements

Special Arrangements may be made available to any student enrolled in a Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences unit of study, who is unable to meet assessment requirements or attend examinations, because of one or more of the following situations:

  1. essential religious commitments or essential beliefs (including cultural and ceremonial commitments)
  2. compulsory legal absence (e.g. jury duty, court summons, etc),
  3. sporting or cultural commitments, including political/union commitments, where the student is representing the University, state or nation,
  4. birth or adoption of a child,
  5. Australian Defence Force or emergency service commitments (including Army Reserve), and
  6. Where the Faculty can form the view that employment of an essential nature to the student would be jeopardise and that the student has little or no discretion with respect to the employment demand
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Possible Outcomes

Examiners may respond to requests for Special Consideration and Special Arrangements in three ways:

  1. the student may be asked to sit a replacement examination,
  2. an extension for missing or unsatisfactory non-examination based assessment may be approved, or new assessments arranged,
  3. in the case of small continuous assessments such as in-class quizzes, learning journals or Blog posts, a student's marks may be re-weighted or averaged.
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