Sourcing invigilators for in-class or departmental tests

If you need invigilation staff for an in-class or departmental test, you can use staff from the central pool of invigilators managed by the Exams Office.

Please contact the Exams Office and ask for the list of invigilators.  Where non-Essex email addresses are provided, it is recommended that you use these and not select the staff from the address book.  If you email all staff in one email, please use the BCC field.

Booking

When you book staff from the central invigilation pool, please be sure to advise them which role you want them to perform in each shift (i.e. standard or senior), as many staff have contracts for both roles.  Please also give them a contact number to call on the day in case they are late or not able to attend for any reason – if they contact the Exams Office, there may not be anyone available to pass the message on to you.

To ensure compliance with Tier 4 visa restrictions, you must give the Exams Office full details (dates and durations) of any work (including paid training and set-up/clearance time for tests) accepted by staff of Tier 4 visas, even if your Department is responsible for the costs. This information must be provided at least one week before the staff member is due to carry out the work. This is because the Exams Office is obliged to calculate planned and confirmed hours for Tier 4 staff on invigilation and scribing contracts and to report this on a weekly basis to HR.  There will be implications for Tier 4 staff and the University if you do not do this, and the Exams Office will seek to remove your access to the central invigilation pool.

Payment 

The Exams Office will pay your invigilation costs for individual needs students (where those students are invigilated in a separate room away from the main cohort), and for scribes/readers. Please ask staff working in those venues to submit a timesheet to the Exams Office. The Exams Office cannot pay invigilation costs for the main cohort – these staff should submit their timesheet to you (or you should record their hours in another way), and you should submit their pay claims to Payroll via a salary return.

The Exams Office cannot pay staff who do not have invigilation contracts with the Exams Office.  The Exams Office recruits new people into these roles annually (usually in February).