About Rate My Course
Appeals
A student or staff member may appeal decisions concerning the moderation and publication of comments on RMC on two grounds:
a) If the comment has been published, that the comment is malicious, potentially defamatory, contains claims of fact that are demonstrably untrue, or would have a serious adverse effect on a person or group.
b) If the comment has been rejected for publication, that the moderators made an error in judgment or mistake of fact in their reasons for rejecting the comment.
All requests for appeal shall be sent to the USU General Manager on usugm@unitec.ac.nz. The General Manager shall consider appeals in conjunction with the RMC Moderation Guidelines. If there is a prima facie case that the comment may have been published or rejected in conflict with the Guidelines, the General Manager must give leave for an appeal, to be heard by USU and Unitec’s joint Rate My Course Steering Committee. If the appeal concerns a published comment, that comment will be immediately removed from the website, pending the outcome of the appeal.
If leave to appeal is granted, the General Manager will appoint a Unitec staff representative as Chair of this Committee for the duration of the appeal. For the purposes of the Appeal, the General Manager shall ensure there is no conflict of interest when appointing the Chair.
The appellant shall be informed within five working days whether they have been given leave to appeal, and notified of the date that their appeal will be considered.
The appellant may either appear in person or submit their appeal in writing to the Committee. The Committee shall also either hear from the moderating team or receive a written response from them before making their final decision.
Where an appellant indicates they wish to appear in person to discuss their application, the process shall follow that for conducting an appeal that has been laid out in Section 3.2.6 of Unitec’s Code of Conduct for Appeals.