Law Honours Policy and Guide

for Staff and Students

1. Overview

In order to graduate with honours, you must

• Achieve an Honours GPA, as determined in accordance with this policy, of at least 5. The Honours GPA is calculated by adding the grade point average of all law units undertaken and counted towards the LLB degree (see more detail below) and averaging scores in those units. The Unit 7039 Law Honours will be weighted as 30% for the purpose of calculating the Honours GPA.

• Following submission of an Honours thesis proposal as part of your studies in the unit 8358 Advanced Legal Research and Writing (Honours), obtaining at least a classification of Good Performance for a substantial piece of legal writing in the elective unit Law Honours (7039). In order to obtain first class honours, you must obtain Exceptional Performance on the Honours paper. In order to receive a degree with Honours, you must earn a Good Performance or above on the paper (these standards are as defined in the Policy on Honours and Degrees with Honours).

2. Definitions

Adequate performance: adequate work, reasonable quality but showing a minimal understanding of the research area with noteworthy deficiencies in content or experimental rigour; little evidence of creative ability or original thought. Sufficient to merit only a bare pass.

Eligible Units: Eligible Units are those which count towards the Entry GPA and Honours GPA. Eligible Units are:

• Any Law unit done which counts towards your LLB (ie, not the subjects going only towards the non-law degree if you are enrolled in a double degree. If you are enrolled in a straight LLB, your open electives are not counted).

• This includes Units for which you receive Advanced Standing, whether done at UC or elsewhere.

• Where you have done extra subjects which may count, eg more than the required amount of law electives, your best results will be counted.

Entry GPA: The Entry GPA is used to determine whether or not a student can enrol in Law Honours and is calculated in accordance with paragraph 3.2.

Exceptional Performance: work of exceptional quality showing clear understanding of subject matter and appreciation of issues; well formulated; arguments sustained; figures and diagrams where relevant; appropriate literature referenced; strong evidence of creative ability and originality; high level of intellectual work.

Good Performance: work of solid quality showing competent understanding of subject matter and appreciation of main issues though possibly with some lapses and inadequacies and with clearly identifiable deficiencies in logic, presentation or originality; some evidence of creative ability; well prepared and presented.

Honours GPA: The Honours GPA is used to determine the final class of honours and is calculated in accordance with paragraph 5.2

Honours Paper: the Honours Paper is the research paper done as part of the Unit Law Honours.

Very Good Performance: work of high quality showing strong grasp of subject matter and appreciation of dominant issues though not necessarily of the finer points; literature referenced; evidence of creative ability and solid intellectual work.

3. Who can do Law Honours?

3.1 Entry to the LLB program and during their law studies, a student seeking admission to the Honours program must achieve at least a credit average in all law units undertaken at the University of Canberra, this being determined by averaging their scores in all eligible units in accordance with the Honours Policy, This may be varied in exceptional circumstances with the consent of the course convener.

Students must complete Advanced Legal Research and Writing (Honours) the semester before they enrol in Honours 7039. In the course of completing Advanced Legal Research and Writing (Honours) students will identify their Honours research question, find a suitable supervisor and draft their Honours research proposal.

GPAs are calculated by using the Universitys system, which awards points as follows:

HD = 7
D = 6
CR = 5
P = 4
Fail = 0

The method by which the University calculates GPAs is explained fully at the following website: https://guard.canberra.edu.au/policy/policy.php?pol_id=2905.

The number of credit points a subject is worth is multiplied by the points obtained, and the total is then divided by the number of credit points attempted. The following is a worked example of calculating a students GPA (this calculation is for four subjects only the final GPA is worked out over all Eligible Units):

GPA over these units: 59/15 = 3.9

3.3 Students will normally undertake the Honours Unit in their final semester. Under special circumstances, they will be permitted to enrol in the Unit in their penultimate semester of study.

4. How is the Thesis Marked

An examiner will be selected by the Honours Convenor. The supervisor will be the second marker. The examiner will give the Honours Paper a percentile mark, assess it as either Exceptional Performance, Very Good Performance, Good Performance or Adequate and submit a brief report to the moderating committee. That report will reflect upon the degree to which the Honours Paper has fulfilled the criteria below. If the supervisor disagrees with the mark or assessment, (s)he will write a separate report. If the supervisor agrees, (s)he will sign off on the examiner's report. All Honours Papers will be moderated.

Each paper will be assessed against the following criteria:

• Degree to which the paper makes a new contribution to knowledge (eg the creation of new data) or a new organisation of existing knowledge or a new presentation or interpretation of existing knowledge

• Depth of research, 

• Whether useful contribution to legal knowledge

• The quality of the arguments or reasoning

• The organisation of the paper

• Use of authorities

• Literary style

It is expected that the Honours Paper will adhere to the assessment criteria of the Faculty of Law.

5. Calculating the final class of honours

5.1 Law degrees with Honours are awarded in the following classes depending on the Honours GPA obtained and the standard of the Honours Paper. 

• First Class: both an Honours GPA of at least 6 and an exceptional performance in the honours component of your assessment

• Second Class - Division I: both an Honours GPA of at least 5.5 and a very good performance in the honours component of your assessment

• Second Class - Division II: both an Honours GPA of at least 5 and a good performance in the Honours component of your assessment

5.2 Calculating the Honours GPA

• GPAs are calculated by using the Universitys system, as described in paragraph 3.2. Effective as of Semester 1 2009, the new policy sets out that the unit 7039 Law honours will be weighted as 30% for the purpose of calculating the Honours GPA.

• Be aware that marks are not automatically rounded up for purposes of Honours. Thus 4.99 does not become 5.00. Where your final mark is within two marks of the next level of honours, or of achieving honours at all (eg a 4.8 is rounded up to 5.0), you can apply in writing to have your honours result upgraded. This will be determined by the Associate Dean (Education) and the Law Honours Unit Convenor, taking into account your academic record and any mitigating circumstances which may have affected your academic performance.