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Education Quality and Policy Office

 

This page outlines the requirements for the submission, consideration and response to Examiners' reports for undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes.  See also our page about Examiners in the Policy Index.

Reporting requirements

All External Examiners are required to write reports on the procedure, conduct and outcomes of the examination. A standard reporting template is provided for this purpose, which can be found on our Examiners page in the Policy Index.

External Examiners should address their reports to the Vice-Chancellor, who passes them to the Education Quality and Policy Office where they are collated and checked for quality assurance purposes. Reports are then forwarded to the Chair of Examiners and/or the Head of Department as appropriate, who are requested to formulate formal written responses to each External Examiner individually, see below Responding to External Examiners' reports.

Faculties and departments should also outline whether they expect other examiners to produce reports and communicate to them the terms of the reports and to whom they should be addressed (e.g. Teaching Committee, Faculty Board).

All Examiners' reports should be considered as unreserved business on Faculty Boards' and other faculty or departmental committees. If it is necessary, comments referring to individual students may need to be excised, in order to preserve their anonymity. The comments of External Examiners can form useful feedback to students on the cohort's performance and provide pointers for improvement for future candidates.

Payment of the External Examiners' fee and expenses is conditional on receipt of the report. Claim forms for payment should be sent to the External Examiner by the relevant Faculty or Department.

Responding to External Examiners' reports

Faculties and departments should routinely reflect upon their methods of assessment and performance of candidates in order to ascertain the effectiveness of their teaching and learning programmes. They are expected to consider and respond appropriately to reports of External Examiners, and may also have mechanisms to consider reports of other examiners and statistical data arising from the examinations of their students.

When considering their responses to External Examiners, faculties and departments should ensure that interested parties are consulted, where relevant and appropriate. These may include the Chair of Examiners (and other examiners), teaching committees, course management committees and course organisers, student representatives and Directors of Studies Committees. Most responses are channelled through either the Faculty Board or an appropriate departmental committee, but must always be unreserved business.

Faculties and departments should make External Examiners' reports available in full to students, after any comments referring to individual candidates have been excised to preserve their anonymity. This could be by publishing them on the Intranet, in the course handbook, by making them available at the Faculty Library, or on request via a publicised route.

The responses should address each issue raised by the External Examiners and should be appropriate to the seriousness of the concern. This may include a commitment to ongoing consideration of issues, a report on action taken or action considered, and/or the identification of issues to be referred to other internal and external bodies to the faculty or department (e.g. General Board's Education Committee, Senior Tutors' Committee, Admissions Forum).

External Examiners should receive a formal written response to their reports from the appropriate faculty or department. Faculties and departments should use their own judgement as to the detail to be included in the response: in some cases, a note of thanks may be all that is needed. It is useful if External Examiners can receive a prompt initial response to their reports as well as further feedback after the full cycle of detailed consideration has been undertaken.

Copies of the responses, along with any additional commentary faculties or departments wish to make, should be sent to educationalpolicy@admin.cam.ac.uk for consideration on behalf of the General Board's Education Committee. The EQPO will determine whether the responses to External Examiners' reports are appropriate and will consider further any issues that are forthcoming, that are of wider import.

For examinations held in June, the responses are expected by the end of Michaelmas of the same calendar year, providing that the reports have been received in good time.

Responding to other Examiners' reports

Faculties and departments should outline to examiners when to submit reports, and how they will then be considered. Responses to the reports of examiners other than External Examiners are managed at a local level; there is no requirement for the General Board to receive either the reports or responses. Issues may arise, however, that may be referred to other bodies (e.g. General Board's Education Committee, Senior Tutors' Committee, Directors of Studies Committee).