Staff are often placed under pressure by their institution to conclude their marking or second marking speedily in on order to ensure internal deadlines are met.
However staff have a responsibility to ensure that quality standards are being maintained, even if this means deadlines have to slip.
Academic staff should therefore take due care and consideration when marking work, ensuring that they are precisely meeting the guidelines both from the university itself and from the QAA.
Second marking or blind marking should be undertaken with similar due care and consideration, with staff again ensuring that they are precisely meeting the guidelines both from the university itself and the QAA.
Under no circumstances should staff allow themselves to be rushed by their institution to the extent that they are unable to fully meet the terms of both the university and the QAA guidelines.
It is clear that the volume of academic workloads is forcing many members to mark students’ work outside normal hours in order to meet internal feedback deadlines. In this case, our advice is that you should mark or second mark all scripts thoroughly and properly and to the letter of your department or QAA guidelines and that you should do this within your normal working patterns.
If you are pressured to cut corners or work extra hours to meet the deadlines report this to the union immediately and ask your line manager to put their instruction in writing including which of your other duties you should not do in order to complete marking; which aspects of the marking process they wish you to cut corners on in order to speed up; and also what they intend to do to meet their obligation to ensure your health, safety and wellbeing with particular regard to realistic workload and deadlines for tasks.