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Summary of Issues from 2008 External Examiner Reports

External Examiners’ Seminar 2009Alan Dordoy, Liz Morrow, LT Support

Ian Shell NBS

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Outline Action after last year’s seminar 2008 Reports:

Summary Report on Standards Issues from 2008 reports

Questions/Discussion

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Action after last year’s seminar

Discussion Point

Follow up

Assessment workloads and timing

Academic Calendar reform scheduled for 2009/10

Marks ending in 9 and use of marking scales in place of percentages

•Revised ‘9’s guidelines issued; still some confusion (see below)•No action on scales at present

Improving feedback to students

•Exam scripts to be returned•Student guides to using feedback issued and feedback campaign

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2008 Reports Reports mostly very positive, increasingly so.

Many comments on good processes, committed staff, improving resources

Schools should have fed back to you with action being taken in response to your reports; 2008 reports say this happens and we are improving – but a few feel previous recommendations have not been acted on. Can all be?

Overview report will go to DVC, University LT Committee, Academic Board – and to yourselves

Academic RegistrySummary Report on Standards

Part A of the report template asks for confirmation that standards are being maintained. Any ‘no’ here must be reported to University LT Committee

Four ‘no’ responses this year on the comparability of performance question – mainly in relation to international student achievement (see below). One ‘no’ on processes.

Are Part A questions worded clearly enough? (they came from HEFCE/TQI; we can change them now)

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Part A Questions

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Issues from 2008 Reports External Examiner arrangements Assessment and marking Student performance Exam Boards and Regulations Confidentiality issues

Academic RegistryExt Examiner Arrangements

Central information – external examiner seminar and web page are useful

School/programme/module information supplied to externals – clear improvements over 2007 but still some gaps

External examiner workloads considered too high in some cases. How can we resolve this?

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Assessment and Marking Assessment practices generally reported as

sound and fair; good information provided to students on tasks and criteria, good and innovative range of assessment types used, good use of Blackboard etc

More quality control of project topics wanted in some areas – sign-off of proposal/outline etc to avoid ‘misconceived’ dissertations

Quality of feedback to students reported to have improved – writing of comments directly on scripts welcomed (except for legibility!)

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Assessment and Marking Confusion over rounding of ‘9’s remains in some

areas – note that the guidelines specify this happens only for the module, not by component. The aim is to get academic judgement on the module class before the exam board

Change of postgraduate pass mark from 40 to 50 welcomed in some areas as removing confusion. However, has caused confusion elsewhere and may have led to clustering of PG marks in a narrow band (50-70). Views?

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Student Performance Rigor in maintaining a consistent

standard across collaborative programmes noted, despite some variability between partner organisations

Some expressed concern at poorer performance of some international students. Increased monitoring of admissions? Attendance monitoring? Views?

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Exam Boards/Regulations Boards well organised – documentation much

improved this year – very few SITS issues raised

A few attended pilots of paperless boards with digital presentation of marks. Noted that this made it difficult to track progression or to consider complex cases

Increased numbers of technical extenuating circumstances affecting exams this year (due to large amount of building work?)

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Exam Boards/Regulations Mixed views remain on non-discretionary

compensation at final level; some see this as fair, others as meaning students have not met all final level outcomes (NB this was raised last year in relation to what is recorded on student transcripts – requires further discussion). Views?

Some concern over classification rules – inflexibility of ‘majority of credit’ rule for borderline cases, especially where programme structures use large (eg 60 credit) modules

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Exam Boards/Regulations Academic misconduct – conflicting

views on whether current rules tough enough, also whether Schools are evolving diverse strategies (NB we are now collecting a consistent data set and monitoring numbers of cases and outcomes across the university)

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Confidentiality Note that exam board confidentiality is now

written into the Examiners’ Handbook (issue had arisen in relation to PSRB obligations)

Concerns remain over rules on students maintaining placement/professional confidentiality in assessments

Some examiners still including student names in their reports (which must, under HEFCE TQI requirements, be shared with student reps)

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Questions/Discussion Less issues thrown up in the reports

this year, but your views on what we should follow up are welcome