Maintaining Academic Standards: the Development of External Examiners

The External Examiners’ system constitutes an important part of quality assurance in the UK. According to the 2018 UK Quality Code, External Examiners have three key roles: maintainers of academic standards, guardians of national standards and process checkers (UKSCQA & QAA, 2018, p.4).

Although the External Examiner system is highly regarded for its role in maintaining Academic Standards (Bloxham & Price, 2015), a number of studies have challenged the effectiveness of External Examiners in maintaining academic standards (Ross, 2009; QAA/HEA, 2013; Rust et al, 2015) due to variability of interpretation at an individual level within and across discipline areas. As a result, the degree standard project was established to design, pilot and deliver different approaches to the professional development of External Examiners.

This session will explore the background of the project, the pilot External Examiner Development Programme and the External Examiner development programme at Sheffield Hallam University as an institutional example. This will be followed by a panel discussion on the External Examining system, the professionalism of External Examiners and their role in maintaining standards going forward.

All colleagues are welcome to this session, which will be led by Christine O Leary with colleagues Prof Chris Rust (Emeritus Professor of Higher) Education, Oxford Brooks) and Dr Helen Kay (Senior Lecturer in Academic Development and Inclusivity).

Booking information:

This event takes place online and is free to attend. Please register via Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/maintaining-academic-standards-the-development-of-external-examiners-tickets-271166284657.

Recording:

For those who cannot attend, a recording of the session will be uploaded to the INRAP site on AdvanceHE connect (https://connect.advance-he.ac.uk/topics/13084/feed), and to our LinkedIn Account: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12622054/

To access the materials and recording for the last INRAP webinar, “The Student Role in Co-Creation” (22^nd February), please visit: https://connect.advance-he.ac.uk/topics/13084/media_center/folder/7cf70a4b-94f7-4698-a62c-ae72cdc9f6ca