Decision report 201003827

Summary
Miss C was a student at the university. She complained that guidance on how to complete a piece of coursework was made available to students after the date that it was due to be handed in. She also complained about the university's failure to limit noise outside their buildings during classes and exams. Miss C was ultimately expelled from the university. She attempted to appeal this in line with the university's disciplinary procedure, but received no response to her appeal.

We found that students on Miss C's course were potentially disadvantaged by the university's failure to provide the coursework guidance in advance of the hand-in date. We did not consider that they should have done any more to restrict the level of noise outside campus premises. Although we found no evidence that the university deliberately ignored Miss C's appeal, we recommended that they consider clarifying their disciplinary procedure's guidance on how to submit an appeal.

Recommendations
We recommended that the university:
• apologise to Miss C; and
• consider reviewing their Code of Discipline to include guidance to students as to how to submit an appeal against the Disciplinary Committee's decision.