Update: External Examiner report form and departmental response

Changes to External Examiner portico report 

We have updated the Portico report questions that are sent to External Examiners. The changes are as follows:

• for the quantitative questions (the questions in sections 1 & 2 with yes/no/NA answers) we have asked that if any issues are indicated, the EE provide further details in section 3.
• Section 3, ‘Recommendations’: we have stressed that any Essential Recommendations should be about ‘serious’ areas of concern, placing academic standards or the student learning experience at immediate risk. 
• A number of tweaks to the wording, intended to make the questions clearer.  

Please see here for a copy of the report.

Changes to how we review the EE report and departmental response 

We will now wait until the departmental response to the EE’s report has been entered onto Portico, and we will then review both the EE’s report and the departmental response at the same time (as long as the departmental response is entered within the 4 week deadline). This will allow us to take into account the departmental response before deciding if Essential recommendations require escalating to Vice-Provost Education & Student Experience (or her nominee). This means that it is extremely important for your departmental response to fully cover all of the recommendations that the EE makes, and also to include a response to any issues flagged up in the quantitative questions (the questions in sections 1 & 2 with yes/no/NA answers). Please note that anything flagged up as a risk to standards will continue to be reported to QRSC.  

Please see our help page for FAQs on responding to EE reports.  

Guidance to EEs – we have created a section on our webpage with some guidance aimed at EEs which you can find here. Please flag this up to your EEs.  

Contact details for further information: examiners@ucl.ac.uk