Student Attendance & Engagement Monitoring | Scottish Graduate Programme in Economics

UK legislation relating to Points-Based Immigration requires all universities to monitor the engagement and attendance of their international students.

PG Monitoring Plan 2021-22

Introduction

On 28 August 2015, the University’s Curriculum and Student Progression Committee approved a new Tier 4 Student Attendance and Engagement Policy for 2015-16 session, to take effect from 31 August 2015:

Tier 4 Student Attendance and Engagement Policy

Compliance is not optional and is required in order to support the University’s Highly Trusted Sponsor Status for international students (and staff). The data and the operational processes are liable to audit by UK Visas and Immigration.

However, it is the policy of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science to monitor the attendance and engagement of all students, as this provides a positive opportunity to identify and help those who might be having problems of one kind or another, or who might need more support.

This monitoring plan outlines the procedures for monitoring student engagement in the School of Economics from September 2021, in line with the revised policy and instruction from Head of College, and supersedes any previous departmental procedures.

Key Points

From the beginning of academic year 2014/15, Head of College has instructed that every School in CAHSS is required to record attendance at all UG and PGT classes/small teaching events for all students. Student Systems have created an Engagement Tab in EUCLID for uploading and recording student engagement data, and have rolled out an app (for use on a Desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone) for recording and automatically uploading engagement records in classes.

In addition to class attendance, Schools are required to record further measures of engagement for all UG, PGT and PGR students. These may be in the form of meetings with Personal Tutors/Supervisors, submission of coursework/attendance of mid-term examinations, or other programme milestones. It is has been a requirement within CAHSS since the start of 2014/15 that these must be recorded in EUCLID for all students.

Compliance with the requirements will require engagement from academic and administrative colleagues, please see the procedures outlined below.

Postgraduate Engagement – School Events

Teaching event engagement will be entered onto the engagement tab of student records by teaching and administrative staff during classes listed in the table below:

Course	Course Occurrence	Teaching Event	Event Occurrence
ECNM11002 Mathematics, Statistics and Econometrics	Semester 1	Tutorials	Weekly
ECNM11043 Econometrics 1	Semester 1	Tutorials	Weekly
ECNM11024 Macroeconomics 1	Semester 1	Tutorials	Weekly
ECNM11023 Microeconomics 1	Semester 1	Tutorials	Weekly
ECNM11050 Econometrics 2	Semester 2, Blk3	Tutorials	Weekly
ECNM11022 Macroeconomics 2	Semester 2, Blk3	Tutorials	Weekly
ECNM11025 Microeconomics 2	Semester 2, Blk3	Tutorials	Weekly
ECNM11048 Advanced Microeconometrics	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11049 Advanced Time Series Econometrics	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11005 Advanced Topics in Macroeconomics	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11006 Advanced Topics in Microeconomics	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11031 Asset Pricing	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11060 Bayesian Econometrics	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11032 Corporate Finance	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11008 Development and Methodology of Economic Thought	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11030 Development Economics	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM110 Economic Policy	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11009 Economics of Labour Markets	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11028 Environmental and Natural Resource Economics	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11053 Experimental Economics and Finance	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11013 Health Economics	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11014 Industrial Organisation	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11015 International Money and Finance	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11016 International Trade	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly
ECNM11041 Topics in Economic History	Semester 2, Blk4	Lectures	Weekly

Postgraduate Monitored Assessment Events

Assessment engagement* will be entered onto the engagement tab student records by the relevant course secretary, in the days following the assessment due date/class exam date. All assessment deadlines/class exam dates will be published in the key date’s document.

*This does not include examinations held within centrally arranged exam diets, which will be recorded by Student Administration.

Tier 4 Contact Points Recorded by School of Economics

Tier 4 students are required to meet 12 monitored contact points in each academic year. The table below outlines how contact points are distributed.

Week	Engagement Point	Define the contact point type (point 9 of the UoE Tier Policy)	Description	Timeline	Who falicitaties the point being recorded
Welcome Week	1	Engagement	Matriculation	September	Student Administration
Week 2	2	Engagement	Class Exams	September	Postgraduate Office
Week 6	3	Attendance	Personal Tutor Meeting	October	Postgraduate Office
	4	Attendance	Attendance at Tutorial	February	Postgraduate Office
Exam Week 3	5	Engagement	Class Exams	December	Postgraduate Office
Week 0	6	Attendance	SGPE Residential Conference Attendance and Presentation	January	Postgraduate Office
Week 4	7	Attendance	Attendance at Tutorial	February	Postgraduate Office
Week 9	8	Engagement	Econometrics Project Submission	March	Postgraduate Office
Vac Week 1	9	Attendance	Pre-Exam Tutorial	April	Postgraduate Office
	10	Engagement	Dissertation Lecture	June	Postgraduate Office
	11	Engagement	Programme Questionnaire	July	Postgraduate Office
	12	Engagement	Dissertation Submission	August	Postgraduate Office

Postgraduate Monitoring Procedures

Process to identify cases of non-engagement

Key staff members will review the attendance records provided by Student Administration and the engagement records input by Schools on a regular basis, looking for exceptions to regular engagement, to identify students who may be experiencing problems.
BI reports, which feed from the EUCLID Engagement data tab, will be checked a minimum of every 2 weeks, to identify students with gaps emerging in attendance and engagement. The School will use BI suite to pull exception reports showing students with no engagement for 2 weeks, and begin by investigating these.
The School will follow up on any records of non-attendance provided to them by Student Administration (for instance, failure to attend a census, failure to confirm attendance, or absence from an entire exam diet), as well as on a lapse of engagement in School events.

Procedures for investigation and escalation cases of non-engagement

Escalation Stage	Trigger	Action	Timescale
Stage 1	Unsatisfactory engagement (lapse of engagement activity 2 weeks)	Informal warning email sent to student. Escalation event 1 created.	Student is given 1 week to respond
Stage 2	No response from student (still no record of engagement activity during 3 week period)	Formal written warning sent to student, copied to Deputy Tier 4 Contact Officer. Escalation event 2 created.	A further 1 week is given for investigation and before escalation to stage 3
Stage 3	No response from student (still no record of engagement activity during 4 week period)	Entire attendance and engagement record is checked, together with any information available from Personal Tutor. Student is summoned to an immediate meeting with Senior Tutor. Escalation event 3 is created.	A further 1 week is given for investigation/to hold a meeting with the student before escalation to stage 4
Stage 4	No response from student/did not attend meeting with Senior Tutor (still no record of engagement activity during 5 week period)	Case referred to College. Escalation event 4 is created.

This article was published on 2024-10-01