Regulations

There are four main types of Regulation at Goldsmiths: General Regulations, Regulations made by Academic Board, Financial Regulations and Student Accommodation Regulations.

In principle, up to three years of Regulations are available on this site at any one time, to ensure that there is transparency concerning year-on-year amendments, and that the needs of those planning for the next year, dealing with current issues, and completing business from the previous year, are all met.

General Regulations

General Regulations (sometimes just called "Regulations") are rules made by Council, which is the governing body of the College. A revised set of General Regulations comes into force each academic year and takes effect on 1 September.

All General Regulations are in some way directly relevant in some way to students, although some of them (such as those relating to Library and Computer Use) apply to staff as well.

Due to the restructuring of student-related areas of the administration in 2009 it was necessary to remove references in Regulations to “Academic Registrar” and “Registry” in 2009-10 updates. In order to avoid the need to make further changes ot Regulations as the departmental structure of the administration changes (bearing in mind in particular that such changes may happen at dates other than that of the General Regulations change each 1 September), the particular individual or department responsible for each named function within the administration will be contained in a schedule published with the General Regulations by the Registrar and Secretary, but will no longer form part of the General Regulations themselves.

Regulations made by Academic Board

Academic Board, which is the supreme academic authority of the College, makes other Regulations in specific areas, which students are obliged to follow as a condition of enrolment, and which are also binding staff and examiners insofar as they apply to them. These are:

• Programme Regulations
• Regulations for Undergraduate Students
• Regulations for Postgraduate Taught Students
• Regulations for Postgraduate Research Students
• Assessment Regulations
• Regulations for External and Intercollegiate Examiners

Detailed queries on these Regulations should be referred to the Quality, Planning and Academic Governance Department, except for those concerning Postgraduate Research Students, which are the responsibility of the Graduate School Office.

Some of the regulations produced by the College specify that they should be read in conjunction with the Ordinances, Regulations or other procedures of the University of London. This applies in particular to the arrangements for Research Degrees.

Financial Regulations

These are approved by Council. They define the framework by which accountability is assured for the proper use of funds - especially public funds - received by the College. The scope of the Financial Regulations extends beyond narrow accounting matters and embraces some areas of institutional governance which are not directly financial in nature.

See Financial Regulations.

Student Accommodation Regulations

These are approved by the Registrar and Secretary within the overall framework of the General Regulation on Student Accommodation. 

How are Regulations defined?

The Regulations in force at Goldsmiths (listed above), are defined by the Ordinance relating to the Procedure for the Creation and Maintenance of Regulations, which is amended from time to time as the need for new types of Regulation, or more frequently restructuring of the existing Regulations, occurs.

On arriving at Goldsmiths, both staff and students have to undertake to observe the Ordinances and Regulations of the College. It is the function of the Ordinance for the Creation and Maintenance of Regulations to define what is meant by "Regulations" in this context.

Regulations may also be used to give authority to formal published policies which are not in themselves Regulations. (An example of this is the Regulation for Information Compliance and Records Management.)

See further information about Ordinances.