Guidance for External Examiners

Welcome & Induction

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A Message from The Vice-Chancellor

Thank you for accepting our invitation to act as an External Examiner.

Although in recent years much has changed in the management and assurance of quality in higher education, the bedrock for maintaining the standard of awards is the external examiner system. Your knowledge and experience will ensure that we can maintain high quality programmes at the University of Greenwich. The university continues to place great importance upon its examiners for the breadth, depth and independent professional viewpoints that you bring to bear when reviewing the standards of assessments, the fitness for purpose of quality processes relating to assessments and the level of achievement our students attain. Your views as a critical peer will be invaluable in enhancing our provision and we look forward to working with you.

The university can trace its history back to Woolwich in 1890, when the newly founded Woolwich Polytechnic, only the second polytechnic in the country, began teaching courses in 38 different subjects. The polytechnic’s revised charter of 1895 stated that the object of the institution was “the promotion of the industrial skill, general knowledge, health and well-being of young men and women belonging to the poorer classes'. After a period as Thames Polytechnic (1970 to 1991), the polytechnic was granted university status in 1992. The university today retains a commitment to widening participation, employability and expanding opportunities for its students: aims that still reflect the reasons for the founding of the original polytechnic over a century ago.

The university has three main campuses: Greenwich Campus, situated in the Old Royal Naval College, Avery Hill Campus, in Eltham, and Medway Campus, at Chatham. It has four faculties, each comprising a number of schools with a particular discipline or subject focus, ranging right across the academic spectrum, from vocational programmes to the more traditional academic disciplines. The university works closely with a group of partner colleges, including specialist and Colleges of Further Education, in the local region.

No doubt your appointment as an examiner will make demands on your time but I hope that you find your period of appointment worthwhile through the sharing of expertise and good practice.

With best wishes,

Professor Jane Harrington, Vice-Chancellor

Right to Work Checks

Prior to issuing a contract, the University is required to undertake a Right to Work check to ensure we comply with visa requirements. This check must to be completed within two weeks of your contract starting, and will be conducted by the Quality Administration Team. It is important that you do not start any work with the University before your Right to Work check has been completed by the Quality Administration Team and you have returned your contract to the University. If you have any questions about this process you can get in contact with the Quality Administration Team by emailing quality@gre.ac.uk.

If you would like more information about Home Office requirements for a Right to Work check: Prove your right to work to an employer: Overview - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Our university policy on UKVI compliance including Right to Work checks in available here: UKVI Compliance Policy and Procedure

EE Roles & Responsibilities

The role of the External Examiner at the University of Greenwich

When an External Examiner is appointed, the Quality Assurance team and the faculty are jointly responsible for providing materials to enable them to undertake their duties and to understand their role in quality management at the university.

The essential role for External Examiners appointed to the university shall be to provide independent, informative comment and recommendations upon whether or not:

1. The university is maintaining the academic standards set for its awards
2. The assessment process measures student achievement rigorously and fairly against the intended outcomes of the programme(s) and is conducted in line with the university’s policies and regulations
3. The academic standards and the achievements of students of the university are comparable with those in other UK higher education institutions of which the External Examiners have experience
4. In providing an oversight of the university’s standards, examiners will be encouraged to identify effective practice and innovation relating to learning, teaching and assessment and enhancements to the quality of the learning opportunities provided to students.

In providing oversight of the university’s standards external examiners will be expected to:

1. Participate in Subject Assessment Panels (SAPs) or Progression and Award Boards (PABs), or both, as required by faculties
2. Attend, as required by the faculty or the relevant PSRB, other specified assessment activities, which may include, inter alia, teaching practice assessments, vivas, objective structured clinical examinations (OSCES), in which students are assessed and where external comment is normally expected to form part of external quality oversight of the module or programme
3. Report to the Vice-Chancellor of the university, as Chair of the Academic Council, on any matters of serious concern arising from the assessments, which put at risk the standard of the university’s awards
4. Undertake formal visits to partnership programmes, either in person or through electronic conferencing, at least once every two years during their period of tenure, in order to meet or engage in discussions with staff
5. Provide the university with specific commentary on individual teaching centres within partnership arrangements
6. Provide the university with a formal report at the end of each academic session in a manner and on a timescale determined by the university.

Other documents and resources will be provided directly to the examiner by the faculty on successful appointment including:

• The last programme review report or approval report
• Module outlines and programme specification for the programme to be examined
• The programme handbook
• The examiner's remit: (modules, sample of student work to be seen, attendance requirements)
• The school's assessment related processes and details of assessment schedules and meetings.

Please contact the University Quality Team on quality@greenwich.ac.uk with any queries.

QAA EE Principles

QAA External Examining Putting Principles into Practice

QAA External Examining Principles: Reflective Questions

Resignation

All EE contracts usually run for 4 academic years and terminate on 31 December. If you are unable to continue to the end of your period of appointment, you should, normally, give the university reasonable notice of your intention to resign so that a replacement can be found and appointed in good time. At least one term’s notice of termination of appointment is preferred by the university in order to protect the quality assurance arrangements for the module/programme.

If you are likely to be unavailable for an extended length of time during the period of appointment, you need to advise the Head of School of the faculty as soon as possible (details are on your welcome email). This will ensure that alternative external examiner arrangements can be put into place.

Letters of resignation should similarly be addressed to your Head of School with a cc to quality@gre.ac.uk

Early termination of appointment

Exceptionally, the university may terminate the appointment of an External Examiner before the completion of his/her period of appointment. The following are circumstances under which the appointment of an External Examiner may be terminated early:

1. Failure to comply with the regulations relevant to their appointment as set out in the University’s Academic Regulations and where the appropriate Head of School or Pro Vice-Chancellor of faculty is unable to resolve the matter with the External Examiner
2. Failure to attend either a Subject Assessment Panel (SAP) or Progression & Award Board (PAB), or other faculty based meetings without good cause and without the prior agreement of the Chair of the Board
3. Failure to submit an annual report
4. Where there has been a significant change in the circumstances of the External Examiner in relation to their appointment
5. Where there has been a significant change in the circumstances related to the course to which the External Examiner has been appointed e.g., discontinuation of the module(s) or programme(s) for which the External Examiner was appointed.

Managing Academic Standards

In order to assure standards of marking, and the consistency of student progression and degree classification, the university operates a two-tier examination board system managed by its faculties: Subject Assessment Panels (SAPs), and Progression and Award Boards (PABs). This two-tier system is overseen by appointed External Examiners who provide the university with an annual, independent view of the standard of university assessments, student work and the resulting awards conferred on individuals.

Subject Assessment Panels (SAPs) are convened to review and address cohort standards, assessment practice and marking standards for all modules under its remit.

• A general guide to Subject Assessment Panels

Progression and Award Boards (PABs) meet in order to make decisions on student progression and degree classification, according to the academic regulations of the university.

• A general guide to Progression and Award Boards

You can find a range of documents on the university's Regulations and Policies page, including:

• Academic Regulations for Taught Awards
• Assessment and Feedback Policy

Submitting an External Examiner Report

Once per academic session, normally after the final Progression and Award Board has met, the university requires all its examiners to submit a formal report to the Institutional contacts. The report, which triggers payment of your annual fee, is circulated to staff that are responsible for considering the points raised in the report (Heads of Schools, Associate Dean Student Success, Quality Officers, and key staff in partner institutions.

The report is designed to allow the university to judge whether its programmes of study are meeting stated learning outcomes and to ensure that any necessary improvements are made, either immediately or during the next academic year, as appropriate. The report also allows the university to capture and share good practice in relation to innovative approaches and also to identify issues that require redress both at local faculty or school level and, where indicated, at institutional level. Please bear in mind when writing your report that this document will be in the public domain.

The University of Greenwich uses MS Form for External Examiner reports.

You can find the form here: https://forms.office.com/r/eHFne7eumR

You do not need to be logged in to any university system to complete the form i.e., Moodle, but PLEASE NOTE – MS Forms does not have a save feature. This means it must be completed in one go. If you would prefer to work on the questions offline at your own convenience, you can download/save the questions, then go online to the form when you are ready and simply copy/paste.

You can download the questions here: Word template

Most of the questions have been converted to a multiple selection, e.g., Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree. We hope that will reduce the time needed, however you may wish to spend time on the qualitative freeform answers.

When you submit the report, you will receive an email notification it has been received, copying in your relevant faculty Quality Assurance team inbox, along with a PDF version of your report for your own records.

There is no need to submit a claims form as payments are processed upon receipt of completed reports.

Timescales and deadlines

As a reminder, fees are paid upon completion of reports and it would be appreciated if submissions for Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes are made by the 31st July.

Claiming for Expenses

Please click on the following link to review the university's staff expenses policy.

For expenses, you can find the claim form below.

• External Examiner's Expenses Claim
  • Do retain original receipts in case you are asked to present them at some point in the future.
  • Kindly return completed and signed expenses form plus clearly scanned copies of original receipts to:
  • Greenwich Business School - bus-externals@greenwich.ac.uk
  • Faculty of Education, Health and Human Sciences - g.stephenson@gre.ac.uk
  • Faculty of Engineering and Science - N.Jack@gre.ac.uk
  • Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences - FLAS_Finance@gre.ac.uk

Resources for External Examiners

Visiting your campus

If you are attending our campuses you can find maps here: https://www.gre.ac.uk/about-us/travel

Induction

This section is being updated and will be shared soon

For any queries, please contact your faculty directly:

• Quality-FEHHS@gre.ac.uk
• Quality-FBUS@gre.ac.uk
• Quality-FES@gre.ac.uk
• Quality-FLAS@gre.ac.uk