Requesting an Assignment Extension

Hi everyone,

May I please remind all of you that you CANNOT request an extension from ANY member of staff if you are falling behind with an assignment. We expect postgraduate (and undergraduate) students to be able to manage their time effectively to ensure they complete assignments in good time. No staff (not even myself as the Programme Leader) has the authority to grant any sort of extension. Scripts that are submitted via the CRO bins have a barcode that is scanned by the CRO themselves - any item not scanned in according to the deadline is logged in the Faculty database as not submitted - and we have no power to override this. Under these circumstances, if you hand in work late (or not at all) you will receive a zero mark for that work.

There may be times however when you are unable to hit a deadline for reasons far more serious than poor time-management. This might include (for example) a family bereavement, pregnancy or other similarly serious event. Being generally unwell (i.e. having a cold), losing a computer disk or feeling stressed etc...is NOT regarded as a valid excuse as these are normal daily pressures on any of us.

If you have a valid, verifiable (by documentation) and serious reason for not being able to submit work on time, you may be eligible for Exceptional Factors. This is where a panel of independent academics assess your circumstances and may (if granted) give you an extension for submitting coursework.

If you feel that you have sufficiently important reasons to apply for Exceptional Factors then you may apply BEFORE the actual deadline for the piece of work you need an extension for. You should not ask a member of academic staff or myself to do this - you must follow a specific procedure:

Form EF1 must be submitted for all Exceptional Factors claims.
Submit the form, along with all necessary documentary evidence, to the appropriate Student Life Office or SIP for all units affected. Your nearest SIP is the one in John Dalton (sipnorth@mmu.ac.uk ). Your academic tutors cannot take the documentation from you. If you delay, you might miss the next available Exceptional Factors panel meeting - and this could affect the way we deal with you at upcoming Boards of Examiner meetings.
The form EF1 and ALL guidance notes for this procedure are clearly presented for download at: http://www.mmu.ac.uk/sas/studentservices/guidance/
If you have any ongoing academic problems - and/or need to discuss these with somebody, then please contact Emma Taylor - the faculty Support Officer. (e.taylor@mmu.ac.uk  /  E29a  /  0161 247 1513 )
If you need to speak with a counsellor - if you have personal issues that are not strictly academic, please contact the MMU Counselling service: http://www.mmu.ac.uk/academic/studserv/counselling/manchester.php

Thanks
Mark

END OF TERM : THIS WEEK !

Hi All,

Please remember that after the classes this week (Wednesday), Friday (14th) December is END OF TERM......and so there will be no more teaching activities until January.....enjoy your Christmas Holiday !

Normal classroom teaching resumes during the week beginning 14th January 2013 - so your first lectures of the Spring Term will be on Wednesday 16th January 2013. The rooms remain the same.

I am away on fieldwork in Malta (along with many other staff and undergraduate students) during the weeks before (3rd - 11th January) - so please don't be offended if you don't get a reply to any emails you send during that period. If you have any urgent emails over the holiday period, please contact either the Student Information Point (SIP) or the EGS Programme Team:

SIP : sipnorth@mmu.ac.uk
EGS Prog. Team : Team4prog@mmu.ac.uk


If I don't see you this week, have a very Happy Christmas and New Year - relax and recharge your batteries !!

Mark

EGS Seminar – Tuesday 11th December 2012

Tuesday 11^th December, Room E419, 4^th floor, John Dalton East Building, from 1.00-2.00pm.

Dr Daisy Dent

University of Stirling, UK and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama

 Successional trajectories of regenerating tropical forests in central Panama

 Across the tropics, secondary and degraded forests now cover a larger area than undisturbed old-growth forest. However, processes determining successional trajectories in regenerating secondary forests remain poorly understood. From chronosequence studies we know that secondary forests rapidly accumulate diversity and complex structure but much less is known about compositional changes over regeneration and how well chronosequence results can predict dynamic changes within forest stands. We examine tree species composition and functional traits (e.g. wood density, seed mass and maximum tree height) in secondary forests ranging from approximately 20 to 120 years since land abandonment and nearby old-growth forests. Specifically, we investigate if species and functional composition become more similar to old-growth with forest age across the chronosequence and how composition has changed within each forest stand over the last 16 years.

Better English for Students

Following a successful launch this year, The Writing Project will run again in Term 2. It is an English language support scheme, established to help students improve their written work and therefore their grades and job prospects.


The Writing Project http://www.writingproject.mmu.ac.uk/ - which starts in W/c 7th Jan 2013 - is a free 10-week course in how to write better English and is open to any MMU-enrolled student who would like to improve the way they write.

It covers academic and non-academic spheres and will focus mainly on style, punctuation, grammatical accuracy, organisation and how to paraphrase and summarise effectively.

Students may choose to enrol directly (i.e. self-refer) or they may be referred to the service as appropriate, for example, by academic tutors, student support officers or student experience tutors.

It will run multiple times on all campuses over the three terms of the academic year. There is no credit attached to the course, and no formal assessment. However, students will do exercises in writing during the weekly one-and-a-half-hour face-to-face sessions and for homework, and will be provided with plenty of feedback on their writing as the course progresses.

International students should be referred, as previously, to the existing ELSIS service, which is designed specifically for students whose first language is not English.

Please help your students and us by promoting this service to them, perhaps by posting this message as an announcement on your Moodle area? Feedback from the first course has been excellent. Students have benefitted massively from this much needed course.

For more information, or to book a place on one of the courses, please visit our web site www.writingproject.mmu.ac.uk or contact writingproject@mmu.ac.uk in the Department of Languages.

Anthony Picot
The Writing Project