Assessment Brief 2025-2026 

Assessment Details: 

You are required to attend and excavate a ‘Fire Scene’, located on campus.  Whilst working in a small group you will formulate a forensic strategy and risk assessment to enable you to excavate the fire scene and recover relevant forensic exhibits. Any recovered forensic exhibits should help to drive the investigation forward to identify a cause of the fire, identify suspects or eliminate individuals. You will later, further examine relevant recovered exhibits of your choice, in the laboratory, to provide a more in-depth detail to the investigation.  Upon completion of the examinations, you will write an evaluative court report to present all your findings, which will be used as evidence in your cross court oral presentation.

An evaluative statement template will be provided on the KLE – this offers structure and guidance.

Module Learning Outcomes: 

In this assessment the following module learning outcomes will be assessed:

ILO1: Describe and critically evaluate the role of the crime scene and the court within the forensic process, including much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of the discipline
ILO2: deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively, make sound judgements in the absence of complete data, and communicate conclusions clearly to professional and non-specialist audiences
ILO3: describe and critically evaluate how established techniques of research and enquiry are used to interpret knowledge in the forensic-legal process
ILO4:  evaluate critically current scholarship in the forensic-legal process by applying conceptual knowledge and methodologies

Assessment Criteria:

Adapted from: Generic Assessment Criteria – Level 7 – June 2023.pdf (keele.ac.uk)

Feedback to Students: 

As this evaluative Report will be used in your final Oral Cross Court Presentation – Marks for this assessment cannot be released until both assessments are complete. Marks will be released on Turnitin, on your original submission. Reports will be marked and agreed by two staff members. Feedback will be available from Clare Smith upon request, either by email or in person.

Inclusive Practice: 

The purpose of this assessment is designed to provide you with experience and training that is recognised by the Chartered Society of Forensic Science (CSFS) the educational professional body for forensic science institutions. The CSFS expects graduates to be able to demonstrate effectively working as part of an investigative team.  To ensure inclusive practice the following have been considered in the design of this assessment:

1. Flexibility – Individual choice of the role you will fulfil during your own group working practical activities, to support each other.  Collaboration within your group to decide which testing process would be more suitable to identify or eliminate individuals. Allowing for open discussion and support throughout.

1. Facilitating Group Work – Linked practical activities allowing for interactive teaching and support, collaboration with group working whilst managing tasks and communicating with others.

1. Individuality/Leadership – Allows for individual leadership within allocated roles, improving confidence and group working skills. Completion of statement should be individual work, using data collected throughout the sessions.

1. Adjustments. Students with specific learning difficulties identified through Disability Support and Inclusion which affect work are encouraged to discuss these with the module teaching team to identify how the assessment can be completed.

1. Assistive technologies. You can make use of assistive technologies in ‘Word’ such as grammar check, formatting tools for text alignment, justification, indents, lists, lines, and paragraph spacing.  Please do use the Statement template provided to offer structure and guidance.

1. Template provided with sections to offer support and direction

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI):

All students can use assistive AI tools to check spelling, grammar and punctuation (i.e., use of in-built spell checkers) in all written assessments excluding examinations and class tests, unless advised otherwise.

For this assessment you can use GenAI-assisted editing and proof reading. You may use GenAI to edit your work (e.g. enhancing phrasing, tone and sentence structure). You are not permitted to use GenAI to generate new content. At the end of your work and before your reference list you must acknowledge your use of GenAI. For example: “I acknowledge the use of Microsoft Copilot (version GPT-4, Microsoft, https://copilot.microsoft.com/) to edit my sentence structure and phrasing”.

Academic Misconduct: 

Academic misconduct is doing something that could give you an unfair advantage in an assessment.  It includes, but is not limited to, the following: plagiarism; collusion; contract cheating; cheating in an examination; falsification of data or sources; falsification of official documents or signatures. The University treats academic misconduct very seriously and penalties will be given for proven cases, including termination of studies in serious cases. It is therefore very important that you understand how to prepare and take assessments honestly. In order to assist you with this there are various resources and help available both as part of your programme of study and also centrally. For more information please visit: https://www.keele.ac.uk/students/academiclife/appeals-complaints-conduct/studentacademicconduct/

Academic Skills Support: 

The Academic and Digital Skills team provide a range of additional online resources (e.g., study guides, Sways, Podcasts, workshops etc) to help you with your academic work and assessments. You can find more information here.

Assessment Brief agreed by (please initial) and date: CS 28/11/2025 and DT 28/11/2025

Assessment Brief vetted by (please initial) and date: EH 28/11/2025

Assessment Brief 40039 (1)