What are the different stages of the appeals process?

Before submitting a formal academic appeal it is recommended that you try and resolve the issue informally with your department if possible. If you are not able to resolve the issue informally then there are 3 stages to the appeals process as below, you must follow each stage, and wait for each to be concluded, before you can move onto the next. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• STAGE 1 - FACULTY APPEAL
• STAGE 2 - SENATE APPEAL
• STAGE 3 - THE OIAHE

STAGE 1 - FACULTY APPEAL

You will need to submit a Faculty Appeal within 21 days of receiving the result that you want to appeal, under exceptional circumstances an extension could be granted, but generally appeals submitted outside of the 21-day deadline will not be reviewed. 

There are 3 grounds under which you can submit a Faculty Appeal as below, to go ahead with an appeal you will need to work out which (if any) of these possible grounds would be most relevant in your case (you can also appeal under multiple grounds if you feel that your case applies to more than 1 of these grounds):

• There is evidence that procedures were not applied correctly
• There were extenuating circumstances which the original decision makers were not aware of, and that for good reason you could not disclose at that time to them (e.g. illness or personal circumstances)
• That the original decision was not reasonable in the given circumstances

The possible outcomes at Faculty level are:

• The result in question is sent back to the board of examiners to be re-examined
• A concession is granted which will impact how the result is taken into account
• The Faculty may pass the case up to the Senate Academic Appeals Committee for examination
• No grounds for appeal are found and the appeal dismissed. In this case, you may wish to progress to the Senate Academic Appeals Committee, about which more information can be found below.

STAGE 2 - SENATE ACADEMIC APPEAL COMMITTEE

Once the Faculty Appeal level has concluded, you may wish to continue appealing if the Faculty finds no grounds for appeal, your SAAC appeal will then need to be submitted within 14 days of receiving the Faculty Appeal Outcome. 

In order for your SAAC appeal to be valid, you will either:  

• Need to have evidence that the procedure was applied incorrectly at the previous Faculty level stage, or;
• Have substantial new information which would impact the case, that you were either not aware of or were unable to tell the University about during the Faculty Appeal stage

Please note that at SAAC level, a decision being ‘unreasonable’ is no longer grounds for an appeal.

The possible outcomes at SAAC level are:

• The result in question is sent back to the board of examiners to be re-examined
• A concession is granted which will impact how the result is taken into account
• No grounds for appeal are found and the appeal dismissed, and a Completion of Procedures (COP) letter is given to you – at this point, you may appeal to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIAHE), about which more information can be found below.

If you'd like more information about the SAAC process then you can skip straight to those articles here - How do I submit a Senate Academic Appeal Committee (SAAC) Appeal

If you are unhappy with the Faculty Appeal Outcome, but do not have grounds for an appeal to Senate, it may be possible for you to submit a case to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator. For more information on this see below.

STAGE 3 - THE OIAHE

The final step of the process is to take your complaint to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIAHE) who are an independent body established by law to investigate student complaints, which will investigate further and may compel the University to consider your appeal. 

To take a case to the OIAHE you must contact them within 12 months of completing the University procedures, and have a Completions of Procedures Letter to show that you have been through the University's appeal process. If you have gone through the Senate Appeal process this letter will be emailed to you when that concludes, but if you have only gone through the Faculty Appeal process (where there were no grounds for an appeal to Senate), you will need to send an email to the Appeals Team to issue this by emailing student.appeals@durham.ac.uk.

Please take a look at our next article here on how to structure and write an appeal...