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Keith Jones: marking and assessment boycott declarations
Posted on behalf of: Internal Communications
Last updated: Wednesday, 21 June 2023
Keith Jones, Interim Provost and Chair of the Joint Negotiating Committee, wrote to all academic staff today (21 June). You can read the full text of his email below.
Dear Colleague,
As I wrote in , the University and College Union (UCU) national marking and assessment boycott has had a significant impact on our students, with almost 70% of our finalists being informed that they cannot yet have their degree classification and will have to wait until all assessments have been marked. They will receive an ordinary degree in the meantime, if they have enough credit.     
The University’s focus now is to ensure that all outstanding work from finalists is marked as soon as possible. I want to thank colleagues who are going above and beyond to help us achieve this.     
I would like to remind you that if you are participating in the marking and assessment boycott you are required to self-declare your participation to the University within two working days. Thank you to those who have already made a declaration.   
For those who have not yet self-declared, you can do so via the electronic declaration form or by emailing IAqueries@sussex.ac.uk to confirm your participation and the date on which your marking was first available. Any outstanding declarations for participation up to and including today’s date should be made by Friday 23 June 2023.   
Thereafter, in order to ensure that participants are being treated consistently in respect of pay deductions, self-declaration data will be compared with School data on modules where marks have not been submitted, and when this marking was first available.   
Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Please see the Industrial Action FAQs page for further information.