Source · SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman)

The Robert Gordon University

SPSO (Scottish Public Services Ombudsman) Not Upheld Reference 201405114 Sector Education Category academic appeal/exam results/degree classification Decided 01 April 2015

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Full decision

Summary

Mr C complained that the university did not acknowledge that feedback on his thesis contained factual errors. We explained to Mr C that we could not investigate complaints relating to the quality of his academic work, or the quality of the academic input by members of university staff.

We found that, in dealing with Mr C's academic appeal, the university took account of the errors in the feedback. The university's appeals procedure said they had to tell a student the decision on the appeal within ten working days. However, it did not say they had to give a detailed account of how they considered the appeal and why they either accepted or rejected every individual point raised in the appeal. In Mr C's case, the university told him their decision on his appeal within the required ten working days. In doing so, the university explained why they concluded there were no grounds for Mr C's appeal, and that disagreement with academic judgement was not a valid ground for appeal. We were satisfied with how the university dealt with Mr C's appeal and, therefore, we did not uphold his complaint.

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View Decision Report 201405114 as a PDF (11.11 KB) Updated: March 13, 2018

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