02 June 2026

Back to frantic marking

When I came back from our trip to the Netherlands, my working week only had three days left. And in these days, a lot needed to happen. By the Monday after, all marking of work by students who might be graduating this summer needed to be finalised. So that means that all dissertations had to be marked by two different people, and they would have had to agreed a mark by then too, and documented that mark. Exams had to have been marked and moderated. That is a lot!

I also have the other burden of being the academic integrity officer, and the module organiser for the dissertation module. And the first thing means I'm spending a lot of time meeting students under suspicion of cheating, and documenting these cases. The second one means that firstly, I have to set a good example, and secondly, I have to keep track of whether other people have done what they need to do, and kick them in the bum if they haven't. 

When I left, I had marked all the dissertations by my own students, but hadn't started yet on the dissertations by other people’s students. And I had marked one of the two exams. So now I needed to do that second marking, and second exam, in three days. And the agreeing marks. That was full on!

With the pressure I was glad I would have a race on Friday evening, so I didn't mind not going running in the hills on Thursday. I could just keep marking that evening. It was a bit sad that the house was, but didn't stay, really tidy; I had cleaned up for the cat sitter, and the cat sitter had cleaned up for me. But now I wasn't keeping that standard up. There was marking to be done.

I just managed to finish marking the second-last dissertation before I got into my car to go to the race on Friday. And I would be able to use the Monday for that last pesky one, and for trying to agree the last marks, and trying to get all the other staff to document their marks. That felt good! But I was a bit tired by then…



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