External examiners
Every taught course unit and programme must have a nominated External Examiner who is responsible for confirming that the standard of our students’ performance is appropriate, and that our assessment and marking arrangements are pedagogically sound, fair, and in compliance with University policy.
The Taught Programme Enhancement team in the central Teaching and Learning Delivery office (TLD) oversees the processes for nominating, appointing, and circulating the reports of External Examiners for undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes.
The TLD External Examiner page provides access to the nomination form (which for easy reference now includes fee payment models and example fee calculations), Code of Practice and other useful documents. Please note that all new External Examiner nominations or changes/additions to the duties of existing Examiners must be made using the appropriate forms which can be found on the TLD External Examiner page.
If you are nominating an External Examiner to act for both undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes, separate nomination forms must be completed.
Timeline for Nominating External Examiners
In 2022 the Humanities Teaching and Learning Committee agreed an earlier succession planning for External Examiner appointments to ensure that External Examiners were nominated and appointed in sufficient time, and to also allow time for right to work checks to be carried out by the central Teaching and Learning Delivery Team.
Right to Work checks need to be carried out prior to the External Examiner carrying out any duties (People and OD have confirmed that duties should not be carried out until these checks have been completed, otherwise we are in breach of Government requirements).
Each September the Faculty TLSE Team will interrogate the External Examiners’ Spreadsheet and identify those External Examiners whose term of office is due to expire in the December of the following calendar year, and notify relevant School TLSE PS contacts.
The nomination paperwork should be submitted to the Faculty TLSE team by the March of the year in which the External Examiner replacement appointment should start. This gives Schools six months in which to identify and approach potential suitable candidates and submit the relevant paperwork for approval in order for the appointments to run from 1 October.
If by March, the School has been unable to identify a suitable replacement they should notify the Faculty TLSE Team. The Faculty TLSE Team, in consultation with the Vice Dean Teaching, Learning and Students will consider options to ensure an External Examiner is appointed.
Nominating External Examiners
External Examiners are initially nominated by the Schools and then Faculty approval must be sought. The Faculty of Humanities Teaching, Learning and Student Experience team is responsible for coordination of the External Examiner (EE) nominations/approvals submitted by Schools.
Completed forms should be sent to the Faculty contact for processing External Examiner nominations. This is Sarah Newman, TLSE Assistant.
Once the nominations have been approved and the forms signed by the Vice Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students, they are sent to TLD who will officiate the appointment and notify the Examiner. The External Examiner appointment process flowchart shows the full nomination procedures.
Calculation of Fees
Full details of Examiners' fees must be provided by the School in the appropriate section of the nomination form. undergraduate (UG) fee calculations must be provided on page 5, postgraduate Taught (PGT) fee calculations on page 7.
Fees must be calculated using the appropriate University fee model for either undergraduate or postgraduate taught External Examiners (see pages 4 and 6 of the nomination form for the fee models for undergraduate and postgraduate taught provision respectively). Examples of how to calculate the fee and complete the fee sections of the form correctly are given on pages 5 and 7 of the nomination form.
Duration of appointments
All External Examiner appointments now last for a period of 4 years. Appointments normally begin on the 1 October of any given year and run until the 31 December 4 years hence. If an exceptional period of tenure is required (e.g. non-standard start date, shorter tenure, replacement External Examiner etc.) the nominating School must state the reasons why, and provide the preferred start and end dates on page 3 of the nomination form.
Adding additional duties to an existing appointment
Additional duties can be given to an existing External Examiner e.g. if they take-on another programme, or course unit. There needs to be an agreement between the School and the External Examiner which needs to be demonstrated to the Faculty.
If there is a change in workload which would result in a change in the fee (normally an increase) an additional duties/amendment form should be completed and approval sought from the Faculty in the usual way.
External Examiners' reports
External Examiners must send their annual reports directly to TLD. Receipt of the report to TLD will normally trigger the External Examiner’s fee payment for the relevant academic year. The TLD will circulate a copy of the External Examiner reports to relevant School and Faculty contacts.
The Faculty is required to monitor comments made by External Examiners as well as the School’s responses to them, as part of the University’s quality assurance framework. School responses to External Examiner reports are expected to be sent to the External Examiner within four weeks of the date of receipt of the report from the TLD. A copy of the School response should be sent to both the Faculty and the TLD.
The Quality Assurance Agency requires each university in the United Kingdom to make External Examiners' reports available to students in full. The context and rationale for this requirement are given in the Sharing External Examiner reports with students document.
Further information on External Examiner processes
Further information on External Examiner processes is available on the University TLD pages.
Examinations process
For further information on examinations process please refer to the examination pages on the University website.