Saturday, 5 September 2026

S284 Astronomy assignments

The S284 Astronomy module website opens on Tuesday 8th but this assessment information was revealed to all enrolled punters several weeks ago. The TMAs are interesting. There are six of them worth 8% each and a non-scoring TMA00 with a firm cut-off date, which is very odd as the zeroth TMA of a module is usually formative and optional. Looking at the cut-off dates, there is an average of one TMA per month throughout the module. The two module exams (not listed here) take the form of timed Moodle quizzes. The first in January of one hour duration (12%), and a more important one at the end in June which is a more traditional three hours long (40%). This module has been designed to be as accessible as possible while still maintaining academic standards. I believe that the replacement for the S283 Planetary Science module will also be modelled on this format, which is no bad thing.