Dennis & co

As people have said, our best bet looks to be the line through independent
Charter status, via Statutes, Regulations etc which imply conditions of
membership of the University which students voluntarily enter into. The
same arguments apply to professional bodies who publish pass lists in the
national press.  Having said this, I'm not convinced that this can be more
than a stalling device.  Govt, courts & public no longer show much
deference or sympathy for the rather tired line 'it's our private club and
we'll write what rules we want', when those rules conflict directly with
UK and EC law.

There *is* a strong argument about the public nature of the *conferral* of
degrees - deriving from Universities' founding Ordinances, which relate to
the public nature of congregation ceremonies.  And by extension, we can
argue that this information *remains* in the public domain after the
relevant ceremony.

But in relation to pass lists we are talking about degree awards that have
not yet been conferred, and whether this is public or personal
information. Long term, I'm struggling to see any point of principle which
distinguishes University awards (degree or otherwise) at the point at
which pass lists are published, from personal attainments such as A Levels
or Swimming Certificates.

But this may not be quite as bad, operationally, as it first appears.  The
fact that a student might have the option not to appear on a pass list
doesn't necessarily imply that the onus moves onto the University to do
something pro-active to communicate that student's result to him/her.  We
can certainly fight that leap of logic.  It may just mean that students
who opt out of pass list publication have to take other steps to establish
their result (and HEIs would have to facilitate this).

There is a related point: at Sussex we have historically also regarded the
fact of whether or not someone is a *current* student with us as public
information.  It seems to me that this is going to be even more difficult
to defend than the publication of pass lists, and we may have to offer
students an opt-out on this.

Owen

On Wed, 22 Jul 1998 14:50:40 +0100 Dennis Barrington-Light wrote:

> From: Dennis Barrington-Light <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 14:50:40 +0100
> Subject: Re: Publication of Examination Results
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > I think there needs to be a distinction between results i.e.marks for
> > individual students and composite lists of degree classification. We
> publish
> > the latter and inddeed our regulations state that we must do so but
marks
> > for individuals are not published (nor displayed in depts) but are
sent
> to
> > each student during the summer.
> >
> > Pauline Ensor
> > Director, Student Administration
> >
>
> Pauline, that is exactly the position here to.  My concern is with not
> being able to publish the classes.
>
> Jim Whitaker's point about signing to agree to the regulations, etc.
also
> applies to us and that will be a good argument to use in my reply.
>
> Nic Seager's point about Graduation Ceremonies is a good one too.
>
> Thanks for all the responses so far.
>
> Dennis
>
> Dennis Barrington-Light
> Head of  Student Records and Statistics
> University of Cambridge, 10 Peas Hill, Cambridge  CB2 3PN
> Tel:    01223-332303 (Direct line)    Fax:    01223-331200
> Email:  [log in to unmask]
>
>


_____
Owen Richards
Senior Assistant Registrar (Registry Systems)
Sussex University
Tel: 01273 877019
Email: [log in to unmask]





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