Undergraduate
Our Undergraduate courses are delivered and supported through a diverse range of learning and teaching experiences. Here you’ll find fashion designers, ceramicists, games designers, fine artists and photographers, all sharing facilities and knowledge.
<p> At Arts University Plymouth we understand that art students are instinctive activists and collaborators, keen to explore and develop their creative practice through inquiry into social and commercial contexts.</p>
<p>Our proposition is quite simply that making is as important as reading and writing, as science and maths, and that the purpose of learning is inseparable from that of living your life. This is a place for making things, for making things happen, and for making a difference. A place of agency. </p>
<p>During the course of your studies, you will experience a variety of learning opportunities which will be delivered as taught or supported sessions, and self-directed study.<br /></p>
<p>You will also have access to university-wide resources which include workshops, project spaces, and our library. Alongside specific skills taught and supported within your programme, university resources are open access for all students. We encourage mobility across subject areas and the development of interdisciplinary practice. <br /></p>
<p>We provide a base room for every programme in the university, offering a space for learning and teaching, alongside social interaction with your peers.</p>
<p>A variety of teaching methods are used to support the development of your learning, to help you to achieve the outcomes needed for each unit of study. This might include learning in: a small group; in lectures, seminars, or critiques; through workshop inductions; through one to one tutorials; or through self-directed study<br /></p>
<p>Study with us and you’ll expand your critical approach alongside developing skills in research and analysis. Our academically robust and intellectually stimulating degree courses are delivered by our team of academics, technical demonstrators and invited experts who together deliver excellence in learning, teaching and assessment. Our courses encourage diversity in thinking and making - from practical applications through to reflective, analytical writing.</p>
<p>We provide a dynamic, stimulating learning environment from which to test new models of practice, while investing in the rich relationship between practice and theory - based on the potential in material and visual exploration, collaborative working, cross-fertilisation of ideas, and the exploration of histories and contemporary contexts.<br /></p>
<p>Formative assessment is an interim review of your work undertaken at key points during your learning.</p>
<p>It provides an indicative measure of your progress, allows you to consider your work in relation to that of your peers, allows you to agree with staff any adjustments you need to make in order to satisfy unit requirements, and is designed to help you improve your performance.</p>
<p>This is a feedback mechanism and does not contribute to the final mark.</p>
<p>Summative assessment is carried out at the end of your unit and provides an evaluation of your progress, generates a final mark, and determines whether or not you have met the learning outcomes to pass the unit.<br /></p>
<p>Feedback is a fundamental part of the learning experience and at Arts University Plymouth we use a number of different approaches to providing supportive and evaluative feedback against student performance.</p>
<p>Formative feedback might take the form of a verbal appraisal through tutorial, or peer-led discussion, and often forms part of critique or seminar discussion on work in progress.</p>
<p>Scheduled Formative Tutorial points offer a chance for reflective review on individual progress towards achieving the Learning Outcomes of the unit.</p>
<p>Summative feedback provides critically reflective comment at the end of a unit, based on the work submitted and its achievement of the Learning Outcomes. This takes the form of written assessment feedback and indicates areas of strength and areas for improvement.</p>
<p>It also provides a clear articulation of individual performance against each Learning Outcome in the unit. In addition, students are offered a feedback tutorial with their tutor, with the exception of the final major project unit.<br /></p>
<p>Academic misconduct is defined as any improper activity or behaviour by a student which may give that student, or another student, an unpermitted academic advantage in a summative assessment.</p>
<p>Examples of academic misconduct include;</p><ul><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Plagiarism</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Falsifying data, evidence or results</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Misrepresentation</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Impersonation</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Cheating in examinations/assessments (including in-class tests)</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Collusion</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Inappropriate use of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Misconduct in examinations (including in-class tests)</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Breaches of research and ethics policies</p></li><li dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr">Contract cheating</p></li></ul>
<p><a href="https://aup.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/production/files/Registry/Arts-University-Plymouth-Academic-Misconduct-policy-2024-25.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">For more information please read our Academic Misconduct Regulations.</a></p>
<p><a href="https://aup.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/production/files/Registry/Arts-University-Plymouth-Academic-Regulations-2024-25.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">You can read our Academic Regulations here.</a></p>
<p>Your learning will consist of a combination of timetabled contact sessions and self-directed study (including personal use of university resources).</p>
<p>During your timetabled course hours, you will have contact with academic lecturers, technical tutors and studio co-ordinators. This may consist of taught studio time, workshops in the university LABS, practical demonstrations, individual and group tutorials, study visits, study zone workshops, lectures (including visiting artists) and group seminars.</p>
<p>Contact hours for all Arts University Plymouth undergraduate courses will equate to approximately 12 hours per week across all years of study. Note there may be variation from this average where Bank Holidays occur.</p>
<p>The teaching day starts at 9am and can finish at 7pm, although each course shapes its own timetable, so start and finish times will vary from course to course.</p>
<p>In addition to your taught learning hours you will have the opportunity to book technical facilities and workshops in order to explore and expand your creative techniques through self-directed exploration and development.<br /></p>
<p>Both on-campus and online, on Wednesdays our students are able to choose from a rich, rolling menu of open access workshops, with everything from learning new or unfamiliar creative and technical skills, mastering learning technologies and software, careers and employability planning and skills development, honing academic skills and writing, to experimenting with new technologies in our on-campus Fab Lab South West (formerly Fab Lab Plymouth). Workshop Wednesdays are designed to complement and support your main area of study and are bookable through our Smarthub app.</p>
<p>In addition to Workshop Wednesdays, our resources and workshops provide bookable access to students at all levels throughout the week who want to further develop their skills, subject to availability.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Our Technical Enrichment offer provides a rolling menu of basic open access inductions and demonstrations that are aimed at building on your current knowledge and skillsets. <br /><br />Whether looking to enhance your practice with new processes and techniques, or refresh and repeat an induction, technical enrichment will provide a carousel of basic inductions and demonstrations in all our technical areas. These sessions can be booked through SmartHub.<br /></p>
<p>Work submitted for a summative assessment cannot be amended after submission, or re-submitted.</p>
<p>A student who misses a deadline or believes that they will miss a deadline should submit extenuating circumstances in accordance with the university's Late Coursework and Extenuating Circumstances Regulations. Academic staff are not permitted to agree deadline extensions for students.<br /></p>
<p>Coursework which is submitted after the deadline will be assessed but the results will not be entered onto the official record until any claim for extenuating circumstances has been considered. Feedback may be given on the quality of the work submitted and an indicative grade awarded. If the circumstances are deemed valid, the actual result achieved will be entered onto the record and submitted to the Progression and Award Board.<br /></p>
<p>Each unit has a set of Unit Elements that will be introduced to you at the beginning of the semester by the Unit Leader.</p>
<p>The Unit Leader will introduce learning opportunities, university-wide resources, reference material for research, and will clearly identify the learning outcomes throughout your learning in the unit. You will be supported through the process of formative review, feedback, and summative assessment.</p>
<p>Assignment Briefs will introduce the aims and objectives of study within each unit, and set out the content of learning.</p>
<p>This includes information on the deliverable components required for assessment submission. The assignment briefs also contain other useful information such as indicative reading lists, and formative and summative assessment points.</p>
<p><strong>Directed learning</strong> is an extremely important part of art and design undergraduate and postgraduate education, and you will be strongly encouraged to develop the ability to take responsibility for setting aims for your work.</p>
<p>This will sometimes also be referred to as directed study on timetables or other programme information.</p>
<p>Directed study provides students with the opportunity to engage in individual self-directed study in support of learning outcomes. This will be in discussion with, and supported by, your lecturers.</p>
<p>The organisation of studios and workshop spaces is designed to encourage the exchange of ideas and promote peer group learning outside timetabled sessions.</p>
<p>At <strong>tutorials</strong> you will work with one tutor either individually or in a small group of students. Tutorials are used to discuss goals in relation to work in progress or your longer term progression to further study or employment.</p>
<p>Individual tutorials will be undertaken in accordance with the Tutorial Practice Guidelines - a minimum of four academic tutorials per year. This will comprise one tutorial per unit, usually a formative mid-point review. Academic tutorials support in-year feedback and guidance on academic work, progress towards units, and future-focused aims, following completion of of studies.<br /> <br />Summative feedback will also be offered for each unit as part of unit delivery.<br /><br />In addition, there are opportunities for pastoral tutorials to support and signpost barriers to learning, where appropriate.</p>
<p>Individual tutorials are also used to give formative feedback on progress to assignments for units. Group tutorials can be used to discuss work in relation to a project.</p>
<p>The title of programmes, programme specifications, outline unit descriptions and an introduction to programme staff are all provided on our website under each <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/study" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">subject area</a>, and the university takes reasonable steps to ensure the provision of the educational services as described in our Prospectus. </p>
<p>Course details are under constant academic review and may change from time to time. It is important to appreciate that we will be responding continually to your feedback as a student to make improvements and naturally this will include modifications to curriculum content.</p>
<p>Equally, from time to time new staff will join and existing staff will leave. In extreme circumstances, courses may be discontinued or replaced. Wherever relevant, we will take all reasonable steps to keep students abreast of potential developments and to minimise any disruption which might result from any changes.</p>
<p>We have published a <a href="https://aup.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/production/files/Footer/Student-Protection-Plan-2023.pdf">Student Protection Plan</a> on our website (under <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/reports-legal-privacy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Reports and Legal Information</a>) to explain the measures we take to protect students’ interests in the event of material change i.e. a significant event or major change affecting students on one or more programmes. This plan makes reference to our <a href="https://aup.lon1.digitaloceanspaces.com/production/files/Footer/Tuition-Fee-Refund-and-Compensation-Policy.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Student Tuition Fee Refund and Compensation Policy</a> detailing that the university will consider paying to students affected by the closure/withdrawal of an academic programme.</p>
<p dir="ltr">With effect from the 2020/21 Academic Year, all Higher Education and Diploma Supplements are issued hard copy to student home addresses and digitally via ‘PremierCert+’, which is a secure online graduate document portal. All students are issued with a log-in to this system upon graduating from Arts University Plymouth.</p>
<p dir="ltr">If you cannot find your log-in details, please email <a href="mailto:registry@aup.ac.uk">registry@aup.ac.uk</a> and we can assist you.</p>
<p dir="ltr">If you have lost your certificate or diploma supplement and require this to be reissued, there is a charge of £100. Please email <a href="mailto:registry@aup.ac.uk">registry@aup.ac.uk</a> to request this.</p>
<p dir="ltr">For students who graduated prior to the 2020/21 Academic Year who require access to their documents, please email <a href="mailto:registry@aup.ac.uk">registry@aup.ac.uk</a> and we can provide you with further information. Please note that charges for duplicate certificates are set by the Open University.</p>
