External examining: lessons from the UK

1. External examining:lessons from the UK Andrew Hannan and Harold Silver Dublin, April 2008

2. An ‘Enquiry into the Nature of External Examining’ • Commissioned by the LTSN Generic Centre and carried out January – July 2004. • 12 institutions of higher education from across the UK (three colleges of HE, four pre-1992 and five post-1992 universities). • 34 interviews with individual external examiners from 30 different institutions, 12 with managers/administrators. • Three focus groups, an ‘expert seminar’ and a professional development workshop.

3. Why be an external? • Academics became external examiners because of reciprocity, curiosity, CV (even, for some, towards promotion) and bringing back ‘intelligence’. • Drawbacks mainly to do with time and timing – little recognition in terms of workload in own institution and coincidence with own exam load. • No-one did it for the money, although it was an issue, partly because of its low level and partly because of the wide differentials between payment for equivalent duties in different institutions.

4. What knowledge is necessary? • External examiners thought they needed combination of academic expertise, experience, flexibility and ability to establish interactive relationships. • Theories of student learning not generally valued. • Some willingness to learn more about theories of assessment. • Induction events were seen as everything from useless to valuable.

5. What induction was taking place? • Of the 12 institutions participating in this project only one had no induction programme at all for newly appointed external examiners. • Two others had no institutionally-provided programme, leaving any provision for schools and departments to decide. • The other nine institutions all arranged induction programmes, generally one-day events introducing the workings of the institution and providing an opportunity to meet with department or programme staff. Attendance was around 50 per cent. • Pre-1992 universities were much more likely to have informal induction processes, which were often rated highly by those involved (see follow-up research by Harold Silver, External Examiners: Aspects of Induction and Briefing 2004-6 in workshop pack).

6. What is the role of the external examiner? • Helping to maintain comparable standards and to ensure fairness for students. • Influence came from careful construction over time of a relationship with enough distance to enable rigorous scrutiny, backed by formal powers, and the growth of a sense of trust and collegial sharing. • Reports were a necessary device to ensure continuity, monitor any progress and, potentially, to draw the attention of important others.

7. What improvements could be made? • Only a tiny minority of respondents thought unequivocally that the system needed to be improved and that external examiners needed formal training and more extensive support. A larger minority thought that no changes of any kind were needed. • Support for all but very limited forms of training and accreditation was extremely small, though interest in informal and ‘on the job’ approaches was much greater. • There could be a role for the home institution in enabling broad experience to be obtained and in helping to prepare external examiners.

8. Good practice • ‘Section 4: External examining’ of the QAA’s Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in HE, published as a second edition in August 2004, sets out 14 ‘precepts’ with explanations. • The QAA claim that, ‘The Code is a statement of good practice that has been endorsed by the higher education community’. • Available at http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/codeOfPractice/section4/cop_external.pdf

9. An example of good practice • Referring to the procedures and practices associated with external examiners, in the February 2005 report of its Institutional Audit the QAA concluded that the University of Plymouth: ‘had an effective framework for managing standards; as a result, broad confidence can be placed in the soundness of the University's … management of the academic standards of its awards’ (para 211). • Instructions, guidance and report forms for external examiners of taught programmes, may be found at: http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=10918

10. And finally -why have an external examiner system? • Academics like the system because it gives them several things they very much need that they wouldn’t otherwise get - comparability, ‘intelligence’, sharing of news and views about the subject and how it should be taught and assessed. • Such sharing between institutions is unusual outside of research. • All this within a framework of collegiality very different from the world of ‘new managerialism’ now so prevalent in HE.  The whole arrangement is only possible because academics have a loyalty to their subject (and/or profession) and a commitment to maintaining its standards that transcends their institution.  They ‘own’ the system rather than the QAA or HEA. • Benefits from important informal aspects, building a relationship of trust, an element of mentoring and advising, making improvements to a course and its assessment over time. • The answer to the question why have external examiners when other countries do without them must be partly in terms of the ‘value added’ by these informal gains.

11. Papers Connor, C. & Davies, B. (2006) Support for external examiners not working in higher education, unpublished report to HEA (‘Conclusion’ included in pack). France, D. & Fletcher, S. (2004) The motivations and professional development needs of aspiring and serving external examiners in the Geography, Earth and Environmental Science disciplines:http://www.gees.ac.uk/projtheme/extexam/eesurvey.htm Hannan, A. & Silver, H. (2004) Enquiry into the Nature of External Examining (Final Report), HEA. Hannan, A. & Silver, H. (2006) ‘On being an external examiner’, Studies in Higher Education, 31, 1, 57-69, Jackson, N. (2005) Guide to the Process of Academic External Examining, HEA: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ourwork/institutions/web0545_guide_to_the_process_of_academic_external_examining Oliver, M., Smith, J. & Jackson, N. (undated) Course Leader and Departmental/Subject Perspectives on External Examining: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/id364_perspectives_on_external_examining QAA (2004)Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in HE: section 4, external examining: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/codeOfPractice/section4/cop_external.pdf Silver, H. (2006) External Examiners: aspects of induction and briefing 2004-6 (included in pack). Silver, H. (undated) External examiners and the benchmarking of standards (included in pack). Silver, H. (undated) Why external examiners? (included in pack).

12. Websites External examiners in Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP):http://www.swap.ac.uk/getinvolved/externalexaminers.html HEA’s (nearly empty!) website on external examining: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/institutions/externalexaminers HEA discussion email lists on external examining for academics and administrators: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/institutions/externalexaminers/discussion Instructions, guidance and report forms for external examiners from the University of Plymouth: http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=10918