Information for external examiners

External examiners play an important role as one of the key safeguards of academic standards of the programmes offered at Keele. Your independent, impartial advice and informed comments will contribute to the enhancement and development of our programmes to ensure that the academic standards of our awards are maintained in line with national standards and our assessment processes measure student achievement rigorously and fairly.

We appreciate that all external examiners across the sector carry out a demanding and difficult task. Therefore, what you tell us in your report will be taken very seriously, discussed in detail by the School offering the subject you examine, and later on in various committees at Faculty and University level. This ensures that we do not overlook any of the subject-specific or university-wide implications of your comments.

In this area, you will find all the information you need as an External Examiner for Keele University including:

Code of Practice for External Examiners;
The most recent external examiner report and responses for your relevant programme (you will need your Keele log-in to access these);
AdvanceHE’s Handbook for External Examiners - A Handbook for External Examining - provides guidance, advice and general information on the topic of external examining. Designed for use by all external examiners, it will be of particular interest to new external examiners or those examiners who may wish to be more familiar with academic institutions and their practices.
The QAA External Examining - Putting the Principles into Practice for both external examiners and institutions;
Programme Specifications for all Undergraduate and Postgraduate programmes;
Marking/assessment criteria for Levels 3, 4, 5 and 6;
Institutional practice in respect of condonement and compensation;
Student progression (including resits and retakes) and reasonable adjustments to assessment procedures for students with disabilities;
Information on Examination Boards;
The Marking and Moderation Policy;
The University Chief External Examiner.

Please note that all appointed External Examiners will be required to prove their eligibility to work in the UK. Please see Eligibility to Work in the UK - Guidance for External Examiners for more information.

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Induction for new external examiners

External examiner report form

Each external examiner is required to submit electronically a full annual report on the designated template Keele EE Report Template 2023-24 to the University, normally within four weeks of the subject examination board taking place.

In addition to the core content relating to standards and student achievement, external examiners are invited to comment on the following:

whether sufficient evidence was received to enable the role to be fulfilled;
whether issues raised in the previous report(s) have been, or are being, addressed to their satisfaction;
areas of good practice and evidence of enhancement;
the addressing of any issues as specifically required by any relevant professional body, and
to give an overview of their term of office (when concluded).

Payment of the External Examiner fee will be triggered by the receipt of the annual report. Please note that the fee will be liable to tax and NI, if applicable.

Quality Assurance receives the reports on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor. Once reports are received, they are checked by Quality Assurance for completeness then forwarded to the School.

The School will ensure that the report and any recommendations contained therein are considered carefully. The School then drafts a formal response to the External Examiner outlining the actions taken to any recommendations, which is approved by the School Education Committee. The School is responsible for sending the approved response to the External Examiner in a timely manner.

The Faculty Education Committee will receive the reports and responses for information and discuss any significant recommendations and highlight commendations for good practice.

In parallel, the External Examiner reports for each Faculty will be scrutinised by Quality Assurance to identify serious concerns or issues of a pan-institutional nature. These will be summarised into Overview Reports and considered, alongside a compendium of good practice identified in the reports, by the Quality and Academic Standards Sub-Committee, University Education Committee and Senate.