Lecturer giving automatic top mark to the first person to submit A friend of mine is studying biology at a UK university and told me about this situation that happened last semester.

An assignment was set on one of her courses, and as the deadline date approached, the lecturer sent out an email stating that the first person to submit their assignment would be guaranteed an automatic first (the top mark available).

She felt this was unfair (what if the first person to submit rushed their work and completed the questions poorly, yet were rewarded for their haste?) but due to the intimidating nature of this particular lecturer, she did not say anything.

My questions are:

Is rewarding the first submission purely because it was the fastest common practice in UK universities (or elsewhere)?

and

What can be done by the student to prevent this situation happening again?
This type of marking is a clear deviation from every set of marking guidelines I have ever seen. Intentionally introducing procedural irregularities is something that can get faculty in trouble. This is something that can and should be brought up to the director of teaching. If that fails you can talk to someone in the student union. You could also get in touch with the external examiners when they come to visit.

It is unlikely the director of teaching would reveal your name when discussing this with the lecturer. If you are really worried, drop a note in the DoT's mailbox with the module number, lecturer's name, and a description of the problem. The behaviour is easily verified so the DoT does not need your name to follow up. The problem with being anonymous is you will not know what happened.