External Examiners - Nomination Procedure

Key documents:
Nomination Form
Criteria for the nomination of External Examiners

Departmental Responsibilities

Heads of Department are responsible for the nomination of external examiners for approval by the Dean on behalf of the University.
In the Summer Term, Heads of Department are prompted for nominations for the appointment or re-appointment of External Examiners. This information is due back to the Academic Standards and Partnerships Office before the end of the Summer term - failure to meet this deadline causes serious delay to the process of appointing external examiners; Heads of Department should therefore ensure that informal approaches to potential External Examiners are initiated as early as possible.

New Appointments

External Examiners are appointed for four years. Exceptionally, an External Examiner may be retained for a fifth year with the permission of the relevant Dean, in order to provide continuity, or where a programme is ending.  Otherwise, Examiners may not serve for more than four consecutive years, and may not be re-appointed as an External Examiner for a taught award of the University for another five years.
Please click for an External Examiner nomination form (Word document)

Choice of Examiners
Proposed External Examiners should normally meet all of the University's criteria for selection which are listed in the Criteria for the nomination of External Examiners. The department should check that the proposed External meets these criteria before submitting a nomination form. In some cases a department may wish to make a case for the appointment of an External who does not meet all of the criteria, for example, where the field to be covered is highly specialised and the pool of possible externals is very limited. In such cases the nomination form should be accompanied by a written case for appointment which addresses those criteria the proposed External does not meet.

External Examiners' Workload

Departments should seek to distribute the workload of their Externals evenly and in line with the principles which govern the University's External Examiner policy.
For further details see the key principles underpinning the University's External Examiner Roles and Responsibilities .
Formal Appointment
Once nominations have been approved the University the Academic Standards and Partnerships Office shall send a formal letter of invitation to each External Examiner, specifying the awards and modules to which they have been appointed. Each External Examiner is asked to confirm that the appointment is accepted and that they are prepared to operate in line with the University's expectations, as described in the Roles and Responsibilities of External Examiners at the University of Essex.