Final year project and assessment

All students at the University undertake an autonomous piece of research work known as a final year project as the culmination of their programme.

This piece of work is seen by students as the pinnacle of their academic achievement, not only because of the academic rigour that is imposed on it by the University, but also because of the control they have to design, carry out and evaluate what they do.  It is often seen to represent the point at which students become truly members of a disciplinary group.

A summary of the characteristics of the Final Year Project is provided below and detailed guidelines have been developed for use by schools who are setting up new FYPs or reviewing existing arrangements to ensure they meet the requirements of the new Leeds Curriculum.

It has been agreed that this piece of work will have the following characteristics (the guidelines include additional requirements for joint honours programmes):

• be compulsory for all undergraduate students who start their degree programme in 2014/15.
• normally be at least 40 credits to recognise the significant contribution it makes to the University of Leeds curriculum. In exceptional circumstances, where the intellectual coherence of the programme would otherwise be undermined, a minimum of 20 credits would be acceptable. Any rating below 40 credits should be considered by the appropriate FTSEC which will need to be assured that the project provides an appropriate experience for the student to evidence their independent research skills
• be assessed in a way which relates to it being a research based activity at undergraduate level
• be supervised within the school (although there may be occasions where co-supervision is the best way forward, where this can be negotiated)
• result in an individual report  responding to a question negotiated at the level of the individual student (which may fit together into a piece of work which a group could do)
• be undertaken according to a research method defined by the student in their report
  

See FYP options for Joint Honours programmes for further guidance.

Assessment

Best practice would be to consider double-blind marking. Where this is not possible, and where the main form of assessment is a piece of written work, then the assessment must be read by two markers, both of whom must be members of academic staff and one of whom must be independent of the setting or supervising of the project.  There must be a clear process for moderation where there are major discrepancies between markers.

See FYP marking recommendations for more information.