bcu assignment guidelines

Centre for Academic Success - student support

Workshops and tutorials.

Within the Centre, our tutors can run workshops and tutorials on a variety of topics, including:

• Academic essay and report writing
• Referencing
• Dissertations
• Presentation skills
• Maths and statistics
• Computing and programming
• Project management
• Study skills

See everything our tutors support

Workshop information

We put on a range of workshops throughout the academic year which may help with your studies. All of our listed workshops are available for any student in the university to attend.

We also run some drop in sessions where our tutors will be available for you to seek support without having to book ahead.

The topics of some of these workshops include:

• Harvard referencing
• Critical Analysis

We also run several workshops for international students to support them with their English language.

If you cannot find a workshop or drop in that you think will help you, consider booking a tutorial.

Workshop timetable

Tutorial information

Tutorials need to be booked online.

Tutorials are held on most week days at the City Centre campus or online.

Tutorials can be booked up to two weeks in advance - don't wait until the last minute before trying to book a tutorial.

Don't forget : it is possible that the information you are seeking is already in one of our  study guides and/or referencing guides ; or it may be included in our  workshops or general resources .

Tutorial guidelines

For each topic of tutorial, you can only book one appointment per week (pending availability).

Tutorials slots normally last for 30 minutes. For some technical subjects you may be allowed to book a 60 miute appointment.

If you cannot attend your tutorial: please log in again to the tutorial system, click on your booked tutorial and complete the cancellation form that will appear. Failing this, please email us at [email protected] .

If you do not let us know and miss an appointment, a record will be kept. Repeated failure to attend may affect your ability to book future appointments.

If you want to discuss a written assignment, please print out or send your tutor your work before you come for the tutorial. We recommend that you bring anything from your first draft/ideas to your final copy. Just remember - you need to know which parts of your work you want to focus on and ask questions about in the tutorial. For technical tutorials, please bring your question or data set.

If you book a technical tutorial, please also email details of what you need advice on to the tutor beforehand, if possible.

Bookings are normally one to one but you can bring a maximum of two friends (or classmates) with you to your tutorial.

What we can cover in the tutorials:

Look at part of your work and make suggestions on, for example, how to improve your academic writing style.

Advise you how to structure your work, use sources and reference correctly.

Give advice on reading techniques, research methods, critical analysis, statistical analysis, etc.

Look at your data and make suggestions about how you could analyse it, and show you a trial analysis so that you learn how to do it for yourself.

What we can't do with you in a tutorial:

Proof-read or edit your work for you.

Comment on the subject matter or explain your topic to you.

Make decisions for you about your data analysis or do your data analysis for you.

Using the online booking system

On the booking page, press  Student sign in and then Sign in .

If this is your first time logging in, you may need to answer a few questions before you can access the system. These will mostly be about how often you would like the system to be able to contact you.

You should now be on the homepage. On the top banner menus, you will be able to press  Book and then  Appointment .

Next you should choose the subject you would like to make an appointment for. Select View appointments  to see the availability for this subject.

You will see all available appointments, along with their date, time, the name of the tutor, the possible locations of the appointment (online only, or on-campus or online), and whether this appointment is available to be booked. If you only want to see appointments that haven't been booked, there is a toggle for  Show only available appointments that you can select. Once you have chosen your slot, click  Book .

Fill out the booking form that pops up, answering all the questions to the best of your availability. Pay close attention to the  Appointment Method  question. If the location of your tutorial is  Online Only , an On-Campus Tutorial will not be possible, so don't select this! You will also be given the opportunity to add notes about what you want to discuss in the tutorial, and upload any relevant files or work. The more you add here, the better prepared our tutors will be to discuss this with you in your appointment, so make the most of this. Once you have finished, make sure you select  Book Appointment at the bottom of the form.

Once you have done this, you should see a confirmation screen that this appointment has been booked. You should also receive an email confirming this. If you have booked an On-Campus Tutorial, all you need to do is come to the location listed at the time and date that you have booked. If you have booked an Email Tutorial, and haven't included all of your questions in the form, you should contact your tutor by email as soon as you can. If you have booked a Video Tutorial via MS Teams, your tutor will send out a meeting invitation for you before your appointment, so make sure to check your student email!

If you have any problems please contact us by email:  [email protected] .

Book a tutorial

Access our support:

Recent searches

We won't record your recent searches as you have opted out of functional cookies. You can change this on our Manage Privacy page should you wish to.

Popular searches

• Scholarships
• Postgraduate Guide
• Student Finance
• Student Support

Suggested searches

• Life in Birmingham
• Graduate Scholarship

• Processes in source creation
• Criteria Checklist Approach: CRAAP

Critical Evaluation: Criteria Checklist Approach: CRAAP

There are different models and criteria that you can use to help you to make an informed decision on whether it is a reliable source to which you can refer in your academic work.

One of these models, the CRAAP test ( Meriam Library, 2019 ) can help you to systematically consider different characteristics of any source of information:  Currency ,  Relevance ,   Authority ,   Accuracy , and  Purpose .

Whichever model you choose, be aware of the limitations of using "evaluation checklists" .

• Are you required to only refer to sources of information published within a certain time-period?
• Is there more current data available?
• Has the information been challenged, revised or superseded by more current data or a more recent edition?
• Check the date of publication for your source of information, whether this is a book, journal article or other format.
• Refer to study/research guidelines for what is considered a current or acceptable publication date for your sources.
• Ensure you have searched widely enough to find more recent editions or publications, where these might exist.
• Is the information relevant to your topic? Does it answer your question?
• Is the source of information aimed at a particular audience or is it pitched at a level that is appropriate for academic purposes?
• Revisit your assignment title, project brief or research outline to check the information for relevance.
• When searching for sources of information, use the advanced search from the Library search at https://www.bcu.ac.uk/library  and limit your search results to peer-reviewed sources. This guarantees that they are suitable for academic purposes.
• Check the keywords in the sources you find to see whether they match the keywords in your search. Checking the title is usually sufficient to act as a quick filter. If searching for journal articles, once you have filtered by title, check the abstract to determine whether the source is relevant.

Determining whether the source material is relevant to your objectives based upon keyword matching was the most common basis for evaluation among 1650 undergraduates in two American state universities ( Wiley et al., 2009 ). 

The keywords that research physicists were looking for when evaluating sources related to three aspects: the topic itself, the research methods used and the names of key authors and key research groups ( Bazerman, 1985: 7 ).

Note : Silva et al. (2018) found that students' reliance on their previous experience was not a help in distinguishing highly-biased sources from fact-based sources. Their conclusion was that "previous experience must be strong and domain-specific in order to help make valuable information-evaluation judgements" ( Silva et al., 2018: 38 ).

• Who is the author/publisher/sponsor for the source of information?
• What are the author's credentials and qualifications?; are they suitably qualified to write such a piece?
• Does the publisher have a good reputation for academic publications?
• Is there a conflict of interest or potential bias arising from the sponsor, author's employer or owner of the source? 
• Do you need information from a specific country? US law, for example, is different from UK law. Scottish law may well be different to English law.
• Is this a peer-reviewed journal?
• Is this journal well-respected in the subject field? There are lists that rank academic journals.
• For how long has it been published?
• Is this the publication of a professional institution or society?
• Does it have an editorial board and advisers who have a publishing background?
• Specialist search tools/resources available through BCU Library will often allow you to search for further work by a particular author, in order to gain a better understanding of the author's body of work
• When searching for sources of information using specific search tools available through BCU Library, you have the option to limit your search results to only peer-reviewed, which means they will be suitable for academic purposes.
• Publications should reveal details of any sponsors but you may have to search the 'small print' for this information.
• If the source is a webpage, does the URL suggest that the source has a reputation to uphold, such as a government or university, for example:.gov or .ac.uk

"Attention to the source seems to be an efficient strategy to determine the reliability of multiple documents and to select more reliable documents in the first place" ( von der Muhlen et al., 2016: 1695 )

This finding was a result of comparisons between psychology staff and students and confirmed previous work by Wineburg (1991) in the field of history and Lundeberg (1987) in the field of law.

Are the author(s) credentials or affiliations listed? Have you heard of the author or read any of their other work? What is the author's track record? This is the "best source of evidence for making credibility choices" ( Goldman, 2001: 106 ).

"There are three things which... induce us to believe a thing apart from any proof of it: good sense, good moral character, and goodwill" ( Aristotle, 350 BCE ).

• Is the information supported by evidence, for example: verifiable references which you can check and/or research data?
• Has the article been peer-reviewed?
• Can you verify any of the information in a different, reputable source?

Can you trust the source? Questions that you can ask are: how good does the source look? are there any factual errors or out of date information? how good is the quality of the writing - are there mistakes in the spelling or grammar? can you communicate with the author and with whom is the author affiliated?

• If you carry out wide enough searches, using effective search tools available through BCU Library, you should be able to identify articles which could offer verification.
• Is there an obvious financial benefactor or sponsor associated with the source of information?
• Is the information substantiated with a high standard of evidence or is it simply opinion or propaganda?
•  Is there discussion of the theoretical background?
• Are there potential political, ideological, cultural, religious, institutional or personal biases?
• Scrutinise the source for any clues about possible sponsors or other parties which stand to gain financially or reputationally from the information.
• Check references and review any available research data to check that this an academic source of information.
• Go back to the original source of the information and check what was stated rather than using the blog, social media post or online news article.
• Ensure that you search widely enough to discover reputable sources of information which can corroborate or refute the data in the source you have found.

Limitations of the "evaluation checklists"

Students are often recommended to evaluating webpages with a checklist approach such as:

• The  CRAAP test ( Meriam Library, 2019 ): Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy and Purpose.
• RADAR ( Mandalios, 2013 , PDF): Relevance, Authority, Date, Appearance, Reason for writing.
• The SIFT method ( Hapgood, 2019 ): Stop, Investigate the source, Find better coverage and Trace claims to the original context.
• The Trust in Online Health Information (TOHI) scale, used in a health context, that features brand, content, credibility, ease of use, recommendation, style, usefulness and verification ( Rowley et al., 2015 ).

Using these features is a "fairly reliable process for evaluating sources" ( Chinn and Rinehart, 2017: 1714 ). The checklist approach is an efficient way of evaluating sources, can easily be applied and uses memorable acronyms.

However, this efficiency encourages surface evaluation, can exclude sources that may be relevant and ignores the actual claims made in the source ( Kim and Hannafin, 2016 ).

The checklist approach therefore needs to be augmented by emphasising the processes used by the source in its creation.

"Knowing the processes used by sources provides a more accurate evaluation of the credibility of the source's claims than relying solely on the source feature" ( Chinn and Rinehart, 2017: 1711 ).

• << Previous: Processes in source creation
• Next: Help >>

Was this page useful?

• Last Updated: Jan 30, 2024 4:55 PM
• URL: https://libguides.bcu.ac.uk/critical-evaluation
• Login to LibApps

Accessibility Tools

Extenuating Circumstances

• Enquiry Form
• Send Us Feedback

Extenuating circumstances (ECs) are events that affect your ability to study or your performance in an assessment and are usually either unforeseen or unpreventable and outside your immediate control.

Here are some examples:

Sudden illness, such as appendicitis or food poisoning

A flare up of a chronic condition

A mental health difficulty

Bereavement

Responsibilities such as caring for someone close to you

If your studies have been affected you can make an EC Claim to ask for an extension or another attempt.  

Minor ailments such as colds and normal levels of exam stress or anxiety are not generally considered to be extenuating circumstances. Your circumstances will be taken more seriously if you can show that they were significant, unexpected, unavoidable and happened around the time of the assessment.

What are Extenuating Circumstances?

Extenuating Circumstances (ECs) is the university’s procedure which enables you to ask for more time to submit or a new attempt at an assessment when you have temporary, unexpected circumstances which affect your studies. Extenuating Circumstances are usually issues such as illness (both physical and mental), bereavement, urgent caring responsibilities, or being a victim of crime. Your circumstance may not be listed but the key point is that your circumstances are temporary and unexpected. If your circumstances are short-term and have affected your ability to complete an assessment, it’s likely they are extenuating. We suggest applying for extenuating circumstances as soon as possible. If you’re unsure, log an enquiry to talk to our Advice Team. If your circumstances are longer term and affecting your studies you may benefit from the help of the Disability Support or Mental Health and Wellbeing team . It is unlikely that you will be able to claim ECs for the same reason on an ongoing basis. You might need to even take a break from your studies. If you need advice on suspending your studies, talk to our Advice Team.

What do I need to consider before I claim?

While there is no limit on how many assessments you can apply for, any deferred assessments could be become due in a short space of time, for example, in the summer resit period. So, think carefully about the impact this will have and whether it would be better to attempt at least some of the assessments. If your assessments are delayed until the summer resit period or beyond, this can also have an impact on your progression/completing your degree on time. You may want to speak to a tutor for advice on the impact before you claim.

When should I apply?

You should apply for extenuating circumstances as soon as you are aware you need them. This is likely to be just before or after your assessment date. For your claim to be on time, you need to complete the form within 5 working days of your assessment deadline. Your evidence can follow later. Claims made outside of the 5 working day deadline are considered late, and you will need a good reason for your late claim, and evidence to confirm your reason for lateness, such as an ongoing illness that prevented you from being well enough to claim on time. It is worth speaking to our Advice Team if your claim is late so we can advise. The university does not accept waiting for your results as a reason to claim late.  

How to apply for Extenuating Circumstances

ECs claims are made on the mySRS portal . Log in and find Extenuating Circumstances under the ‘Support’ tab at the top. Click for guidance on how to use the claim form , found on iCity. If you’re struggling with the form, our Advice Team can help you or check our helpful guide below

CLICK HERE FOR GUIDE

• what the circumstances are

• when the circumstances occurred (this may be an exact date or a period of time)

• how they affected your ability to study for the assessment(s) you are claiming for

You don’t need to go into great detail about the history of your circumstances. More important is what is happening now or recently that has affected your ability to study. Which attempt do I choose? You will be asked which module(s) and assessment(s) you want to apply for. If you’ve already had several attempts at an assessment, you need to choose the assessment attempt that was affected by your circumstances. This will usually be your most recent attempt . However, there are instances in which you can also ask for other older attempts to be to be considered. If unsure, talk to our Advice Team. What can I claim for? Here’s an explanation of the options: • Extension - provides you with an extra 10 working days to submit an assignment. You can’t get an extension for a resit or for an exam. • Review of Performance - that attempt is not considered a fail and you do it at the next opportunity, e.g. during the summer. Another way review of performance can be used is if you think your studies have been affected but you’re not sure how much so you still want to attempt the assessment. If the claim is successful and you subsequently pass, your overall performance for the year will be looked at, and that piece of work compared to it. If the grade for that work falls 2% or more below your yearly average, you will be awarded another optional attempt. You can then choose to take that attempt again or stick with your pass grade. • Disability related repeats and remarks – you should choose this option if you’ve recently had a Disability Support Summary (DSS) put in place and want to ask for an earlier attempt(s) you did without support to be ignored or remarked. If considering this option, it is best to talk to our Advice Team.

Evidence for Extenuating Circumstances

What evidence do I need to provide? It is important that you provide evidence to back up your claim for ECs. On Page 7 of the University’s Procedure there is a list of what types of evidence the university will/will not accept . Claims without evidence are highly likely to be rejected. Your evidence needs to contain a few key points: 1. Evidence must cover the date of assessment. You need to show that the reasons you’re claiming are affecting you at the time of assessment. 2. Evidence needs to say how your circumstances are affected you i.e., how they prevented you from studying. 3. If you’re claiming late, your evidence needs to show that you could not reasonably make the claim any earlier than you have. For example, was your illness so bad that it prevented you from engaging with university procedures until now? If you are struggling to obtain evidence to back up your claims, please speak to the Advice Team so we can explore if there are any alternatives.

Extenuating Circumstances Decisions

When will I receive a decision? Check your university email for an automated email which details whether your claim was successful or unsuccessful, and any comments on the claim. The university aims to reply to all claims within 5 working days of a completed form, with evidence. Sometimes there can be delays in response time; the university will let you know through your student inbox with any updates to your claim. If response time is delayed to the point your deadlines are approaching, you need to choose to either submit to the original deadline or, if asking for an extension, take a risk and submit to the extended deadline in the hope that it is successful. If not accepted, you will receive a late penalty if you submit within 5 working days of the original deadline. Beyond 5 working days it will be considered a fail. If your claim was successful, Student Governance will inform your School Office that you have ECs, and your tutors should be able to advise you on your new deadlines or assessment dates. Can I appeal? If your claim was unsuccessful, you can raise a query against the decision and provide further evidence within 10 working days of the decision being made. You should speak to the Advice Team about raising a query against the decision. There should be a reason why your claim was rejected, and there may be steps you can take which can change the decision in your favour. If not happy with the query decision, you can also make a formal academic appeal within 10 working days.

Watch our 12 minute guide on Extenuating Circumstances

Protect yourself from scams, beware of rental scams, artificial intelligence update, is your tenancy agreement bills inclusive, latest articles from our advice team.

Read on for advice on how to identify and report potential scams ...

Read for how to protect yourself from recent housing scams ...

Things to look out for when using AI in your assessments ...

Make sure you understand what this really means and how it may affect your energ ...

• Library Help
• BCU Library

Q. How do I reference the NICE Guidelines?

• 1 Academic Skills
• 1 Be Considerate
• 1 Book a space
• 5 Books and ebooks
• 1 Borrowing, renewing and returning
• 1 Catalogue
• 7 Centre for Academic Success
• 1 Copyright
• 9 Coronavirus
• 8 Curzon Library
• 9 Customer Services
• 1 eBook Accessibility
• 91 Electronic Resources
• 3 Inter Library Loans
• 9 Journal articles
• 1 Lost and damaged books
• 3 Mary Seacole Library
• 1 Newspapers
• 1 Opening Hours
• 2 Reading Lists Online
• 14 Referencing
• 1 Relocation
• 1 Reservations
• 2 School of Art Library
• 2 School of Jewellery Library
• 5 Searching
• 5 Study skills
• 3 Study space
• 9 Subject help
• 2 Using the library
• 1 Visiting the Library
• 2 You Said We Did

Answered By: Ellie Worth Last Updated: Feb 20, 2024     Views: 139234

The following shows how to reference a NICE guideline in the BCU Harvard Style .

Bibliography:

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) (2018) guideline for tuberculosis care advises that...

The guideline for tuberculosis care (NICE, 2016) advises that...

The first time you use the name, you should write it in full followed by the abbreviation in brackets e.g. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Following the first usage, you may use just the abbreviation.

If you are quoting directly you will need to include the page number:

"Statutory, community and voluntary organisations and advocates working with the general public, and under-served and high-risk groups in particular, should share information on TB education and awareness training with all frontline staff"(National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2016: 6).

A screen-reader version of our referencing guidelines is available.

Links & Files

• All referencing guidelines
• Share on Facebook

Did this answer your question? Yes 153 No 92

Comments (1)

• This was a great help. by airbender on Mar 04, 2019

Related Topics

• Referencing

Chat to us 24/7

Got a question?

Chat with one of our librarians during staffed hours, or one of our partner librarians from around the world outside of staffed hours. The service is available 24/7!

Useful links

Useful Links

Library website

Referencing guide

Opening hours

Reading lists

Subject guides

IT Help  

Book a study room

Accessibility Statement

Birmingham City University

Skip to : main content | Skip to : main menu | Skip to : section menu

• Birmingham City University Home Page
• BCU Open Access Repository

How to write a PhD Proposal

Samuels, P. (2017) How to write a PhD Proposal. Technical Report. ResearchGate, Birmingham, UK.

A PhD proposal is a focused document that introduces your PhD study idea and seeks to convince the reader that your idea is interesting, original and viable within the allocated study period and with the resources available. It also provides a preliminary review of the literature and proposes how the research should be carried out. The purpose of this guide is to assist prospective PhD students write good quality proposals.

Actions (login required)

In this section...