How to use this handbook

This is the document you will refer to most often for the next four years. It states what the programme requires of you and what you may expect from us. The academic content of each module belongs in the module pages. This handbook covers structure, progression, assessment, conduct and support.

Where this handbook and a module page appear to disagree, the handbook governs the regulation and the module page governs the teaching. Ask your personal tutor if the answer matters to a deadline.

The award

MSci Human-Computer Interaction. An integrated master's award at level 7, delivered over four years of full-time study, 480 credits in total. The award is made on the aggregate of all four years, with the classification rules set out below.

The programme is written to BCS accreditation expectations. The computing science content, mathematics, professional practice and the accredited group project are all present and assessed. This matters if you intend to register as a Chartered IT Professional. It matters more in a regulated sector, where the educational base is audited.

Structure and credit

Each year carries 120 credits. Years one, two and four are delivered as eight modules of 15 credits, with the master's year split into six taught modules and a project examined in two parts. Year three is delivered as seven compulsory modules plus one elective of 15 credits: a student takes exactly one of HCI3107 Professional practice and the HCI profession or HCI3109 Data visualisation in practice, and both satisfy the same requirement, so the year carries 120 credits and the programme carries 480. A 15-credit module represents about 150 hours of learning, of which roughly 36 hours are scheduled contact and the rest is independent work. That figure is not decoration. It is the basis on which assessment volume is set.

Progression

To progress from year one to year two you must pass 100 credits, including every module designated as a prerequisite. The prerequisite modules are programming, mathematics and the web platform, because the year two methods modules assume them.

To progress from year two to year three you must pass 100 credits, including quantitative methods and qualitative analysis, because the year three project requires both.

To progress to the master's year you must pass 120 credits at level 6 and achieve a year average of at least 55 per cent. This threshold is a condition of the integrated award. A student below it is not ready to run an independent study, and the master's year is almost entirely independent study.

A student who completes years one to three but does not progress to the master's year may be awarded the BSc Human-Computer Interaction, provided the level 6 requirements are met. That exit award is a fallback, not an alternative route, and it is not available to a student who declines the master's year having qualified for it.

Classification

The final classification uses the credit-weighted mean of level 6 and level 7 marks, with level 6 weighted at 30 per cent and level 7 at 70 per cent. Level 4 and level 5 marks contribute to progression but not to classification. The master's project carries double weight within level 7 for classification purposes, because it is the piece of work that demonstrates independent capability.

Compensation is permitted within a year where a student narrowly fails a module and the year average is secure. The limits are the standard institutional ones: a maximum of 30 credits compensated in any year, no compensation in the master's project, and no compensation against a prerequisite.

Assessment

Assessment is designed to produce evidence of capability rather than evidence of attendance. A typical module is assessed by two or three pieces of coursework, and about a fifth of the modules add a written examination where recall without reference material is the point.

Every module specification states its assessment pattern and weighting on the module page. Those weightings are fixed for the year. If a change becomes unavoidable, you will be told in writing before the affected assessment is set, not after.

Feedback

Coursework is returned with a mark and comments within four working weeks of the submission deadline. Comments address three things: what the work demonstrated, what it did not, and what the next piece of work should do differently. A mark without those three is not feedback and you should raise it with the module leader.

Formative work is set in every studio module and is marked without a grade, with a pass or not-yet judgement and comments. Formative marks do not count towards your degree. They exist so that you can fail safely.

Late submission and mitigation

Standard institutional penalties apply to late submission. Extensions are granted for illness, caring responsibility, disability or a documented emergency. Apply through the normal route, not by negotiation with the module leader. Where difficulty affects several assessments, use the mitigation process. It looks at the whole picture; separate extensions do not.

The studio

Studio is the part of the programme most unlike a lecture course, and the part students most often misunderstand in the first term. The rule is simple: bring work that is not finished.

A critique is not a review of a finished artefact. You present what you were trying to find out, what you made to find it out, and what happened. The room then tells you what the work actually shows, which is frequently not what you thought. You are expected to separate two kinds of objection: those about evidence and those about preference. Both are legitimate. They require different answers. An objection about evidence is answered with data. An objection about preference is answered by explaining whose preference the design serves and why that is the right choice.

Critique is a professional skill and it is assessed. You will be marked on the quality of the critique you give to other students as well as the work you present.

Group work

Two modules involve substantial group work: the engineering module in year two and the industry group project in year three. In both, the group produces a shared artefact and each individual is separately accountable for their contribution.

Contribution is evidenced rather than asserted. Repository history, decision logs, meeting notes and the record of who did what are the evidence. A student who cannot show their contribution to a shared deliverable cannot be credited with it, however much of the thinking was theirs. This is a hard rule and it exists because the alternative is to award marks on the basis of who speaks most confidently in a meeting.

Groups are encouraged to raise a non-contributing member early with the module leader. The earlier it is raised, the more options exist. Raised in the final week, the options are limited to a reduced individual mark.

Professional placement

An optional placement year may be taken between years three and four. It carries no credit, appears on your record as a placement year, and extends the degree by twelve months. Placement is arranged through the placements office and supported by a placement tutor who visits or meets you at least twice during the year.

You may not take a placement in place of the industry group project. The project is an accreditation requirement and must be completed within the taught programme.

Research with people

From year one you will work with people who are not students: interviewees, usability participants, people using assistive technology, and clients. Every study involving people requires ethical approval before any participant is contacted. This is not a formality and the timetable assumes you will allow three weeks.

The requirements are consistent across the programme. Informed consent in writing, with the purpose, the data, the retention period and the right to withdraw stated in plain language. No inducement that could reasonably be read as pressure. Data stored on institutionally approved systems, not on personal devices or personal cloud accounts. Participants from a vulnerable group require the additional safeguards set out in the ethics policy.

Two failures recur and both are avoidable. The first is recruiting participants before approval, which invalidates the data. The second is recording more than the study needs, which creates a data protection problem for no research benefit.

Academic integrity and the use of AI tools

You are expected to use the tools a professional uses. That includes generative AI, and this programme does not treat its use as misconduct in itself.

What is misconduct is claiming work you did not do. It includes four things. Submitting generated text as your own writing without acknowledgement. Citing a source you have not read, or a source that does not exist. Fabricating data or study results. Presenting a generated artefact as evidence of your own capability.

The operating rule is simple. AI assistance is permitted and must be declared. Add a short statement to each submission stating which tool you used, for what purpose, and what you changed. A submission without a declaration is taken as a declaration that no such tool was used.

Two consequences follow, and both are assessed. First, fabricated citations are treated as a serious integrity breach, because in professional practice they are. Second, you will be examined on your ability to judge generated material, so an answer that reproduces a plausible but wrong claim scores worse than an answer that identifies it as wrong.

Support

Every student has a personal tutor from the academic staff, who meets you at least twice a term in years one and two and once a term thereafter. The tutor is your first point of contact for anything that affects your study and is not a module-specific question.

Disability and long-term conditions: the disability service arranges reasonable adjustments, and the programme's inclusive design commitments mean the teaching materials are already accessible. If an adjustment is not working, tell the module leader rather than working around it.

Wellbeing: the programme is demanding and the studio model makes your work visible to others, which some students find difficult in the first year. Support is available and using it has no academic consequence.

Academic writing and mathematics support is available through the central service and is used most by students who did not expect to need it.

Raising a concern

Raise an academic concern with the module leader first, then your personal tutor, then the programme director. A concern about assessment is raised through the appeals process, which has a deadline of ten working days after the mark is published.

A concern about conduct, including harassment or discrimination, may be raised through the institutional route or with the programme director directly. You do not have to raise it with the person concerned first.

Professional concerns about a placement or a client project are covered separately: raise them with the placement tutor or the module leader, and if the concern is about safety or legality it takes precedence over any confidentiality agreement.

The year at a glance

Teaching runs in two terms of eleven weeks with a reading week in the middle of each. Assessment periods fall after each term. The industry project in year three runs across the whole year. It has three client checkpoints, in weeks four, seven and ten of the second term.

Studio weeks are protected: no new lecture material is introduced in a studio week, so that the time is available for critique and iteration. This is deliberate and it is the part of the timetable most often eroded by other demands. If it is eroded, tell the programme director.

What we ask of you

Read the set reading before the session, because the session assumes it. Bring unfinished work to studio. Show your working, including the parts that failed. Tell us early when something is going wrong, whether it is academic or personal, because every remedy in this handbook works better earlier than later.

The programme is designed so that a student who does those four things will pass, and a student who does them well will be excellent. There is no hidden requirement beyond that.