External Examiner roles and responsibilities

Out taught course External Examiner policy, which is reviewed annually, can be found below.

• Taught course External Examiner policy (.pdf)

All policy information can be found in the above policy. The remaining information present on these External Examiner webpages is guidance and supplementary information.

For the purposes of these webpages, and the taught course External Examiner policy, ‘department’ can be read as interchangeable with ‘school’ or other equivalent. ‘Partnerships’ are included under references to ‘departments’ unless a partnerships-specific note is included.

Please note that the policy and information on these webpages relates specifically to taught course External Examiners. For Postgraduate Research External Examiners, please see the Postgraduate Research webpages and contact pgresearch@essex.ac.uk with any queries. 

If students want more information on the role of External Examiners and reports submitted, they can talk to their course representative or Head of Department/School.

Sample Exclusions

External Examiners need not be routinely engaged in Level 4 or reassessments, unless required by Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Bodies.

Where there are extensions for postgraduate taught dissertations, External Examiners are not expected to review a sample of these delayed submissions on top of the samples taken from work submitted on time.

Annual Review of Courses

Departments should send the approved version of their ARC report to the relevant External Examiner. They may also send a draft before the deadline if they wish.

Exam Boards

All Exam Boards are held remotely (online).

For internal University of Essex provision External Examiners

In order to access the Exam Boards and associated material, External Examiners will need to access their University of Essex IT account. Please check that you have access in good time before any Exam Boards. If you have difficulty accessing your IT account, please contact external.examiners@essex.ac.uk in the first instance.

Annual Report

For more information about the annual report, please see the reporting webpage.