► Complaints
Academic complaints…. First key point, don’t worry and DON’T PANIC!
Kayleigh, your Education Officer, is around to give advice if you’re having issues with any aspect of your experience at the University of Lincoln. Complaints may concern virtually any aspect of your student life.
Complaints don’t just have to be individual; you can make them as a group if more than one student is experiencing the same problem.
Problems which can turn in to academic complaints are wide ranging and can be anything from unprofessional or unacceptable practices to the setting of work and marking. The way this is done is not meant to be opposing the students; the aim is to work with you to get the issue resolved.
You, as a student, will not be penalised in any way if you do decide to go ahead with making a complaint.
Now for the science behind the art…
Informal complaints are the first step in putting the wheels in motion. You can either make a written or verbal complaint to your academic tutor, course leader or another academic advocate. You can also come in and speak to your Education Officer Kayleigh who can then contact the head of the course to try to resolve the problem without a formal complaint being made. This can be done without identifying you as the student making the issue known, and it is recognised as an official process by the university and its staff.
If these processes don’t work then the Formal Complaints Procedure can begin. There are two phases to this, Faculty Procedure and University Procedure, and the complaint must pass through both stages to be valid.
The formal procedure starts with writing to your Head of Department stating the problem, what you have already tried to do to resolve the issue and any evidence you have which will support your case. The Education Officer can help you with all of this.
The Head of Department will then write back to you and let you know the outcome of their investigation and what action to take next if you are not satisfied with what they have concluded.
The second stage is writing to the Dean of Faculty stating why you wish to take the complaint to them and add in why you were unhappy with the outcome of the first stage of your complaint. The Dean will then action a formal investigation which is conducted by two senior independent members of staff. As with before, the result will be sent to you with what has been done to resolve the problem and if the outcome is still not satisfactory, the first stage of University Procedure can begin.
Most cases do not progress past the Dean of Faculty.
If the complaint doesn’t get resolved at faculty level then a letter can be submitted to the University Secretary. The letter should again detail why you were not happy with the outcome of the faculty investigation. A panel will then be formed with the University Registrar and other members of the staff not involved in the case who will investigate and try to resolve the case.
The final internal stage of complaints is to write again to the University Secretary if you are still not happy with the outcome and request that the Board of Governors looks into the case and the processes gone through.
The OIA is the Office of Independent Adjudicator and if by the end of the whole process you are not happy with the way it has turned out, you can inform them of the processes undertaken and why there has not been a satisfactory outcome and they will investigate further. This stage is extremely rare.
