Report submission (partner institutions)
Report templates
Completed report templates should be emailed to external.examiners@essex.ac.uk. We would expect to receive your report within four weeks of attending the final examination board meetings. Once this has been processed your fee and expenses will be paid.
- Undergraduate and Postgraduate Taught Report template (.docx)
- Postgraduate Interim Report template (.docx)
Late submission
External Examiner reports should be submitted within four weeks after the date of the Exam Board and/or work was reviewed.
External Examiners who appear to be late in submitting a report will be contacted by the Quality and Academic Development team initially as a prompt. All undergraduate reports relating to June or July Boards of Examiners meetings should be submitted by the end of August at the latest and postgraduate reports relating to November or December Boards of Examiners meetings by the end of December at the latest.
If a report has not been received by the deadlines, and the Quality and Academic Team are unsuccessful in further requests for the reports, the Pro-Vice Chancellor (Education) will write to the examiner concerned with a further reminder. If this is unsuccessful consideration will be given to terminating the examiner’s appointment on the grounds that the specified duties have not been fulfilled.
Reports must be submitted within three months of the examination board to be considered 'received', since reports received after this point can no longer contribute meaningfully to other quality assurance mechanisms.
Responses to External Examiners
On receipt, reports are available to the head of department or school (in the case of joint awards, the report will be available to the heads of all relevant departments), the Departmental/School Manager, the appropriate Executive Dean(s) or nominee(s) and the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education).
The head of department or school should discuss the reports at a team level and make a considered and timely response to each External Examiner. Internal departments should provide this response via the External Examiners Report Portal. The response should outline any action to be taken (or the reason why there will be no action if this is the case) in response to External Examiners’ recommendations. Partner Institutions should complete this response using the relevant field on the Partner External Examiner Report proforma and provide this to the Dean of Partnerships (or nominee) and QUAD. The head of department or school then reports back to the University in the relevant Annual Review of Courses report.
Role of Executive Dean
The Executive Dean or nominee does not routinely consult with the head of department or school on departmental level issues, unless they are of particular concern and require urgent action. The Executive Dean or nominee considers External Examiner reports to identify issues which cross departments and/or which merit consideration at the level of the faculty or at University level via the appropriate committee.
Undergraduate External Examiner issues for faculty consideration are normally referred by the Executive Dean or nominee to the Autumn Term meeting of the Faculty Education Committee. Taught postgraduate External Examiner issues are normally referred by the Executive Dean or nominee to the Spring Term meeting of the Faculty Education Committee. The consideration of issues in this way enables departments to reflect upon relevant Faculty Education Committee discussions of External Examiner issues when finalising their annual review of courses reports.
Correspondence
Copies of correspondence between heads of departments or school, Executive Dean (or nominee) and External Examiners should be retained by departments. Records and extracts of relevant Board minutes will be held by the Assessment Team.
Student access to reports
Students should have access to External Examiner reports via their representatives on Faculty Education Committee and on department/school Student Voice Groups, or equivalent.
