NOT Academic Judgement

[Hetty ter Haar]

The OIA, when asked whether our complaint against SOAS was a matter of
acadmic judgement or not, stated that

"Our Formal Decision made it clear that the key aspect of your
complaint that we were able to look at was the discrepancy between the
course as represented and the course delivered. That is not a matter
of academic judgement."

The Final Decision said:

"This Office cannot interfere with the School's academic judgement. We
cannot put ourselves in the position of examiners in order to re-mark
work or pass comment on the quality of work. We can only look at
whether an institution has breached its procedures or acted unfailrly.

The complainants included a copy of the reading lists, course
descriptions for both programmes and lecture notes with their
complaint. Under the OIA's rules I am unable to review the School's
academic judgement. This includes its decisions about the appropriate
academic content for its courses. However, the complaint is not so
much about the details of the course content as about a discrepancy
between the course as represented and as delivered."

The Final Decision then proceeds to review the Procedures under the
School's Code of Practice, and not the key aspects of our complaint,
to conclude that "the final decision of the Director and Principal on
24 November 2005 was a reasonable offer to resolve [the] complaints."


In September 2005, SOAS stated in the report of the (first) hearing
that

"In the light of the documentation considered and the discussions
held, it was debatable how much of a fundamental change in course
contents had been made in 2004/5 in the TTCL course compared to
previous years (and therefore how much of a change should have been
notified to the students), given it was a matter of academic
judegement as to how the different terms and the course material might
be taught."


SOAS has now changed its position, for which see the link (Terms of
Use and Disclaimer, para 7.1) below, and acknowledges the contractual
relationship between university and student.


http://www.soas.ac.uk/utility/terms-of-use-and-disclaimer.html