External advisers to programme proposal
Comments from at least one external adviser are required as part of the approval of the detailed content of a programme.
The external adviser should be nominated by the School and approved by the Faculty at the approval in principle stage. The programme proposer will ask him/her to provide feedback on the academic coherence of the new programme during the drafting of the NPP2 submission. The external adviser acts as critical friend. S/he should be a subject specialist but should not be a current external examiner. An external adviser for a new programme should not normally be subsequently appointed as an external examiner unless by exception, such as there only being a small pool of suitable people available in a particular specialist subject. The specific time/s at which the feedback from the external adviser will be requested by the School will be agreed between the proposer and the Faculty Quality Administrator.
Comments from an external adviser should be more than an indication that the proposal is 'interesting' and must therefore include some analysis of and comments on the academic content and structure of the programme. An external adviser should be asked to make reference to:
- the appropriateness of the programme aims, learning outcomes and content in relation to relevant subject benchmark statement/s (where they have been published);
- the relationship of the programme to the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications;
- the relationship of the programme to any other external reference points.
The external adviser should therefore be a senior academic at another higher education institution. There may be cases where it is also appropriate to use another external adviser and for this adviser to be from industry.
Please note: The University is unable to appoint external advisers who are based outside of the UK, due to Home Office requirements and finance issues.
A pro forma, which can be used when inviting external advisers to provide feedback, can be downloaded from the link below:
It is anticipated that the external adviser's comments will provide constructive advice to the programme team and therefore that they will be taken into account during the development of the programme. However there may be instances when the programme team considers the comments but decides not to incorporate certain elements into the proposal. In this case the programme proposer must include a covering note of explanation.
In the case of a delay in receiving comments from an external adviser, a second nominee will be considered by the Faculty.
On receipt of written feedback, the Faculty will make a payment of £100 to each external adviser. There will be cases where there will be a cluster of cognate programmes to be considered together for approval. They will not each require a separate external adviser but will require effort additional to that for a single programme. In such cases one external adviser should be paid £100 per new programme proposal plus £50 per each additional cognate programme.