2022 Assessments FAQs

There is no longer a requirement for a cover sheet to be submitted for assessments in the Department of Statistics. However, please ensure that your five-digit candidate number and course code are written or included at the top of every page of your answers. Your name must not appear anywhere in your answer paper.

Your work should be scanned, converted to PDF and then uploaded to Moodle as one individual file. Save your assessment submission using your five-digit candidate number, followed by the assessment’s course code as the file name (e.g. 98765-ST405.pdf).

However, if you have a Letter of Notification (LoN) as part of an existing Individual Exam Adjustment or Inclusion Plan, you may submit this as a separate document.

The maximum file size is 100MB. You may need to scan at a lower quality (e.g. use 150dpi and grayscale) or compress your PDF (e.g. using PDFsam)

If during your online assessment periods, you experience technical issues relating to your online assessment(s), contact Tech.support@lse.ac.uk with the subject heading ‘Assessment Enquiry and course code’ and cc the relevant lecturer or phone (+44 020 7107 5000). DTS Tech Support will be operating weekdays 8am-5.30pm (UK Time), excluding UK Bank Holidays and Saturday (10am-2pm (UK time) during the assessment period.

If you encounter any problems and you cannot upload your file on Moodle, you can email a copy to Statistics@lse.ac.uk. Please ensure that you include the course code in the email title.

If possible, it is worth having both a broadband connection for a laptop/PC and a 3G/4G data subscription for a mobile phone. Current laptops, PCs and mobile phones often have the possibility to set up a mobile hotspot, so you can use your phone’s internet connection on your PC or vice versa.

To reduce the risk of technical issues during the exam you are also advised to take the following precautions: 

• Ensure that your device is fully charged on the day of the exam to avoid the device switching off. 
• Check the power saving options on the device – to avoid the possibility of it going into hibernation/sleep mode during the exam.
• Install any important updates a few days before the exam and ensure that the device works ok afterwards (that you can connect to the Internet etc).

To avoid the possibility of late submission, ensure that you allow yourself sufficient time to prepare and upload your submission. For all Statistics exams, you have 1 hour additional time for scanning and uploading your submission. Always check straightaway that your submission has definitely uploaded correctly. You can do this by clicking into the portal once more and ensuring that the file uploaded under the “File submissions” section is correct. Click on the file to download a copy and view it. 

The penalties for late submission are detailed below: 

a)     Time limited assessments with a common start/finish time for all students; or,

b)     Time limited assessments to be taken at any time within a 24-hour window: 

• Students that submit after the deadline will receive a zero mark
• These students should submit exceptional circumstances and the Exam Board will consider whether the zero mark will be discounted or, where the student has run out of attempts, a further opportunity to attempt the assessment.
• Students who are not ‘Fit to Sit’ would be expected to defer in advance of the assessment window. 

c)      Online ‘take home’ assessments with a 24-hour assessment window

• Five percentage marks will be deducted for every hour (or part hour) the assessment is late.

 d)     Assessments with either a 48-hour, 72-hour, one-week, two-week or three-week window: 

For the first 24 hours after assessment submission deadline:

• Five percentage marks will be deducted for every half-day (12 hours), or part of a half day the assessment is received late. This will result in a maximum penalty of ten percentage marks for the first 24 hours.

 For beyond the first 24 hours after assessment submission deadline:

• Ten percentage marks will be deducted for the first 24 hours as above then five percentage marks will be deducted per 24 hour period (not limited to working days) the assessment is late, or 24 hour period, thereafter

 Assessments of longer than three weeks:

•  Five percentage marks per day (normal days not just working days), or part, thereafter late.

In particular, if you experience submission problems in any of your courses (either ‘ST’ or ‘non-ST’ courses), please ensure that you contact the appropriate people as soon as possible after submission with an explanation (including evidence if possible) as to why you could not submit in good time:

For ST (Department of Statistics) Courses – please notify the course lecturer and the Programme Manager for your degree programme.

For Non-ST Courses – please contact your Programme Manager and additionally the Department responsible for the course. The Programme Managers in the Department of Statistics are:

• Undergraduate – Steven Ellis s.j.ellis@lse.ac.uk
• MSc – Sarah McManus s.mcmanus@lse.ac.uk
• PhD – Penny Montague p.montague@lse.ac.uk

You may also choose to submit an Exceptional Circumstances form via the School system here. However, in the first instance we suggest contacting the above individuals, as it may be possible to resolve the issue without submitting a formal EC claim.

For courses where a shorter, timed assessment is required (i.e. the majority of Statistics courses), If you already have an Individual Exam Adjustment (IEA) that includes extra writing time and/or rest breaks, this will be applied automatically to your assessment time by the Student Services Team.

For online assessments of 24 hours duration or longer, the assessment window is specifically designed to be longer than the approximate time required to complete the assessment task. Therefore, the assessment window should give you the opportunity to complete all the tasks at a time that is appropriate to your circumstances including rest breaks etc, removing the need for any further adjustments.

To guarantee the integrity of the assessment process, the Department of Statistics may conduct Selective Interviews for any assessments delivered online and for any other assessments submitted throughout the academic year. These interviews will only be held if there is concern that work submitted is not a student’s own.

The assessment will mimic a standard examination as far as is possible. However, due to the limited time available it will not be possible to answer queries arising during the exam. If you think there is an error in the paper, you should clearly state your assumptions and proceed with the question(s). In addition, you should note the suspected error clearly at the beginning of your submission under the heading “NOTE”. This approach will enable examiners to make any necessary adjustments equitably across all students when looking at individual scripts after the fact.