Extenuating Circumstances (EC) to be managed in Portico from next year

UCL has recently undertaken a review of student support regulations including, Extenuating Circumstances, Reasonable Adjustments, and Fitness to Study. To support changes to EC regulations, all EC requests will be submitted and managed via Portico from next academic year.

What’s changing?

All EC requests will be submitted and managed via Portico from next academic year.

Students will submit their requests via Portico and departments will be able to track and manage requests in the system bringing improved transparency of the process.  

The new functionality in Portico will be used by all departments across UCL. 

All EC requests relating to assessments taking place in 2022/23 will be processed within Portico.

EC requests for UG students finishing their LSAs will continue to be managed via the former method along with any PG students completing in Autumn 2022

PGT students completing in time for the Autumn exam boards will also continue on the existing EC system.

Why are we introducing a new system for managing ECs?

The new EC system supports changes to the EC regulations which, together, will improve the student experience in the following ways:

• A simplified, straight-forward request process
• More equitable decisions due to greater standardisation
• Easier process as minimal data input required - all personal, programme, module and assessment data is in SITS
• Improved response times and reduction in lost requests
• Greater transparency and support - students can login to the portal and check status of requests

It also offers many benefits to staff:

• Less time-consuming and resource intensive for staff
• Fewer data errors from applications - all information stored in one place, automating updating of decisions and communications will save staff time
• Improved EC transparency will enable UCL to better adhere to academic policies
• Only giving staff access to required information improves GDPR compliance
• Improve data quality will expedite the process for students and staff
• All requests and decisions in one place will save staff time and reduce the risk of not complying with an EC decision

Next steps

A special edition of the AS newsletter will be released in early August to coincide with the launch of the Academic Manual for 2022-23 and the Core Programme Information. In this edition we will share further information about the changes to student support regulations, now incorporated within a single UCL Student Support Framework alongside more details about the new Portico EC system, training and support plans for staff in September.