• Section 1 - Key Information
• Section 2 - Purpose
• Section 3 - Scope
• Section 4 - Key Decisions
• Section 5 - Policy Statement
• Section 6 - Procedures
• Part A - Quality Assurance of Assessment
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Record-Keeping
• Validation of Assessment
• Moderation of Assessment
• Part B - Student Requests for Review and Remark
• General
• Initial Review
• Request for Formal Review or Re-Mark
• Complaints
• Part C - Assurance of Results
• Section 7 - Definitions
• Section 8 - Authority and Associated Information

This Procedure is applicable from 3 March 2025.

Section 1 - Key Information

Section 2 - Purpose

(1) The University assures the quality, consistency, and integrity of its courses through a range of measures which include external referencing and calibration of course and subject quality, and the validation and moderation of assessment of student achievement.

(2) The requirements for external referencing and calibration are outlined in the Course and Subject Management Procedure -  Monitoring and Review and associated guidelines.

(3) This Procedure sets out the University’s approach to validation and moderation of assessment.

Section 3 - Scope

(4) Refer to the Assessment Policy.

Section 4 - Key Decisions

Section 5 - Policy Statement

(5) This Procedure forms part of the Assessment Policy suite which governs its application.

Section 6 - Procedures

Part A - Quality Assurance of Assessment

Roles and Responsibilities

(6) Subject Coordinators are responsible for overseeing validation and moderation of subjects by subject teaching teams and are normally responsible for appointing peer reviewers.

(7) Course Coordinators are responsible for overseeing validation and moderation activities at course level, including any collaboration with other schools where necessary.

(8) Associate Deans (Learning and Teaching) are responsible for oversight of all validation and moderation activities within their school.

Record-Keeping

(9) Subject Coordinators are responsible for completing and storing Validation and Moderation Forms for all applicable assessment items in their subject. This evidence is normally included with documentation associated with subject monitoring completed by Subject Coordinators at the conclusion of each teaching period.

(10) Schools must retain evidence of all quality assurance activities for a minimum of four years from the conclusion of an activity. 

Validation of Assessment

(11) The validation of individual assessment activities and tools must ensure that:

1. assessment tasks align with Subject Intended Learning Outcomes;
2. tasks are underpinned by appropriate expectations in relation to year level, weighting and subject content;
3. assessment documents are free from ambiguities, grammatical errors, and spelling mistakes;
4. timeframes set for all assessments are reasonable;
5. rubrics and guides are clear, and assessment criteria are linked to the marking standards.

(12) Validation must be undertaken by an academic peer reviewer who may be an experienced colleague in a related disciplinary area.

(13) Validation activities typically take place prior to each instance of an assessment task being set and distributed to students, allowing sufficient time to incorporate any necessary changes resulting from the validation, or when an assessment task is changed. All aspects of the assessment task must be validated including instructions and rubrics.

Moderation of Assessment

(14) Moderation enables academic staff responsible for assessment in a course or subject to reach consensus about levels of student performance in relation to a set of agreed standards. During the process of moderation judgements made by different staff who are involved in assessing student performance are compared and either confirmed or adjusted. This process supports fairness and consistency in assessment, regardless of whether students are enrolled in different instances of a subject, and whatever the delivery location, method, or mode.

(15) Moderation may take a variety of forms, dependent upon the nature of the subject and assessment tasks. Guidance on options for moderation is provided by Education Services, including specific guidance for moderating assessment conducted under third-party arrangements.

Coursework Subjects

(16) Where the composition of assessment allows, moderation must be undertaken for assessment tasks that singly or collectively make up at least 60% of the total grade for individual subjects.

(17) All moderation must be completed prior to marks being returned to individual students.

(18) Wherever possible, point-in-time assessment tasks, such as those that are delivered orally or carried out in a practical setting, should be subject to panel marking or recorded to facilitate any need for further review. 

(19) Where panel marking has occurred, further moderation is not required. Where panel marking is not possible:

1. a meeting of all assessors should be held to confirm the rubric prior to the conduct of the task;
2. if the performance of the task has been able to be recorded all fail results should be reviewed by a peer reviewer.

Thesis Subjects

(20) The following rules apply to examination of thesis subjects within a coursework degree:

1. a minimum of two examiners must be appointed for thesis subjects worth 60 credit points or more;
2. where there is a discrepancy of more than 10% between the marks awarded by the original examiners additional moderation is required.

Part B - Student Requests for Review and Remark

General

(21) All students have the right to request a review of marks for individual pieces of assessment worth 20% or more of the final result for a subject where the work is physically able to be reviewed.

Initial Review

(22) Students with queries or concerns about their result for an assessment task should first ask the original marker of the piece of assessment to review their work with them. If the original assessor is not available students should approach the Subject Coordinator. This request must be made as soon as possible and within seven (7) calendar days of the student receiving the result for the task.

(23) Within ten (10) business days of the student’s request, or within a shorter period for terms and other shorter teaching periods, the marker will discuss the student’s performance in the assessment task with the student with reference to the rubric. They will also check that the result has been calculated correctly but will not re-mark the work.

(24) When reviewing assessment material, such as examination scripts, held by the University:

1. students may not remove the assessed material from the inspection room when viewing on site;
2. students may not photograph or keep any electronic record of the material whether viewing it on-site or online;
3. the marker, or another La Trobe staff member, must be present at all times.

Request for Formal Review or Re-Mark

(25) A student may apply for a more formal review of a result, or re-mark, only on the grounds that the original assessment failed to follow the published rubric for the assessment task.

(26) An application for re-mark must be made within seven (7) calendar days of the initial review and submitted to the Subject Coordinator. If the Subject Coordinator was the original marker, the application should be submitted to the Discipline Lead, Head of Major, or Course Coordinator as appropriate.

(27) The formal application must:

1. include a copy of the original marked assignment where this is not available to the Subject Coordinator or relevant staff member;
2. include evidence that the assessment task and its mark has been discussed with the original marker;
3. report the result of the discussion, including feedback provided;
4. explain why the student believes the original assessment failed to follow the published rubric.

(28) A student will receive one of the following, normally within 10 business days of the submission being received:

1. the outcome of the re-mark, where the request for review has been approved; or 
2. advice that the request has been rejected, where the request does not comply with the grounds for review.

(29) When a student has their request for a review approved, the submitted assessment task will be double-marked by an alternate assessor.

(30) The mark given as an outcome of a re-mark replaces the original mark and can be higher or lower than the original mark in most circumstances. A re-mark cannot lead to a lower mark where:

1. a student’s original mark on an assessment task was a Fail;
2. the new mark would lead to a student failing a task on which the original mark was a pass. In these circumstances the student is to be awarded a mark of 50% (D).

(31) An individual assessment task may only undergo a formal re-mark once under the provisions in this Procedure. 

Complaints

(32) Students who believe they have grounds that this Procedure has not been correctly followed may lodge a complaint under the provisions of the Student Complaints Management Policy. Where a complaint is escalated the University Ombudsman may only conduct an investigation into whether the correct procedures were followed in the making of any decision in relation to assessment.

Part C - Assurance of Results

(33) Student Administration provides a schedule for each Progression Period listing tasks and key dates to ensure that results are ratified and formally published to students on or before the last date for release of results.

(34) Subject Coordinators are responsible for ensuring all marks for assessment tasks are accurate and grades have been entered into relevant systems within the results deadline.

(35) The Dean is responsible for ensuring that a review of results occurs at the conclusion of each teaching period. As Chief Examiners for the schools, Associate Deans (Learning and Teaching) must ensure that the purposes of this review are met. This means that:

1. all grades have been lodged and are complete and accurate;
2. Learning Access Plans have been followed;
3. moderation has occurred where appropriate;
4. anomalies in records are identified and resolved;
5. possible issues in student success are identified and referred to the relevant school committee or leadership team for review.

Section 7 - Definitions

(36) For the purposes of this Policy and Procedure:

1. double marking: a re-mark of an assessment piece where the second marker does not have access to the comments and marks awarded by the first marker;
2. moderation: the set of processes aimed at aligning assessor judgements about student performance on assessment tasks (grades, etc);
3. panel marking: simultaneous marking of a single performance or body of work by more than one marker, with the final mark arrived at either by negotiated consensus among the panel or by averaging the marks of the individual markers;
4. peer reviewer: an academic, either internal or external to the University, who undertakes peer review of assessment that falls within their area, or related area of expertise;
5. point-in-time assessment tasks: tasks that are executed at a particular point in time where the major activity is not written. This includes tasks such as those that are delivered orally (presentations, performances, role plays or moot courts) or those carried out in a clinical or practical setting.
6. re-mark: the process by which a piece of assessed work is considered by an academic staff member other than the original marker at the request of a student to determine whether the original result should stand or be amended;
7. review: the process by which a piece of assessed work is considered again by the original marker to confirm whether the original result was correct;
8. rubric: the agreed individual qualities or features that must be demonstrated in an assessment task to measure the extent to which a student has achieved the intended learning outcomes for the subject;
9. validation: the act of ensuring that assessment tasks and outcomes provide reliable and measurable evidence of student achievement.

Section 8 - Authority and Associated Information

(37) This Procedure is made under the La Trobe University Act 2009.

(38) Associated information includes:

1. Course Design Policy
2. Course and Subject Management Policy
3. Guidelines and templates available on the Assessment Policy intranet