Report submission (University of Essex)
A consolidated taught course External Examiner policy has now been approved by Senate. This policy document does not include any changes in policy since 2024/25 and instead brings together all policy information into a single point for clarity and ease.
All policy information has been removed from these External Examiner webpages and can instead be found in the policy noted above. 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.
Annual and interim report writing
Annual report submission
How you report is determined by what type of provision you oversee. If you review both internal University of Essex provision and partnerships provision you should submit reports for each. Please note that the submission process differs for each of these provision types, see below for further details.
For internal University of Essex provision
External Examiners
The External Examiner Report Portal is an online submission system for External Examiner annual and interim reports. Reports, and department Responses to said reports, will be saved within the system and will be accessible to relevant members of department and faculty staff so as to feed into the University of Essex's quality assurance processes.
The External Examiner User Guide (.pdf) provides guidance on using the Report Portal.
We recommend that External Examiners use the report proforma document with integrated guidance (.docx) to draft their annual report before using copy/paste to transfer answers to the External Examiner report portal for submission.
Department staff
Departments will receive a notification through the External Examiner Report Portal when a report is ready for review. The Departmental User Report Portal Guide (taught programmes) provides information on how to access your External Examiner reports.
For Partnerships provision
External Examiners for Partner Institutions should complete their annual and interim reports on the Word templates below and submit via email to external.examiners@essex.ac.uk.
- External Examiner report proforma with writing guidance (.docx)
- Postgraduate interim report template (.docx)
You will be informed of timings for report submissions at the beginning of your appointment, but if you have any questions regarding when these are required you should contact external.examiners@essex.ac.uk to clarify.
Partnerships staff
Quality and Academic Development will send any reports received to you via email.
We frequently receive enquiries from our External Examiners seeking additional guidance on how to write their annual reports, including requests for example responses. Although we are unable to provide an example report due to the differing needs across departments, we have created a report proforma document with integrated guidance to support the writing process (.docx).
There is no specific guidance for the one-question interim report.
Responses to annual reports
Partner Institutions should complete this response using the relevant field on the External Examiner Report proforma and provide a copy to the Partnerships Team by uploading to their online Box folder.
Internal departments/schools should provide this response via the External Examiners Report Portal.
Late reports
External Examiners who appear to be late in submitting a report will be contacted by the Quality and Academic Development team initially as a prompt. All undergraduate reports relating to June or July Boards of Examiners meetings should be submitted by the end of August at the latest and postgraduate reports relating to November or December Boards of Examiners meetings by the end of December at the latest.
Reports for University of Essex Partnership provision may run to different timelines. Any deviations from the standard timeline should be confirmed in the External Examiner contract.
If a report has not been received by the deadlines, and the Quality and Academic Team are unsuccessful in further requests for the reports, they will escalate to a senior member of the University. If this is unsuccessful consideration will be given to terminating the Examiner's appointment on the grounds that the specified duties have not been fulfilled.
Overview of External Examiner reports for internal University of Essex provision
Clarifications to policy and process for non-standard internal University of Essex provision
Clarifications for January-start provision
External Examiners who oversee both October-start and January-start provision
External Examiners who oversee both October-start and January-start provision will submit their report considering all October provision and the January provision to date within 4 weeks after their final October provision Exam Board.
This report will feed into the UG Overview or PG Overview of feedback raised in External Examiner reports.
The report will be left open for further comment once the annual cycle and Exam Board for January provision has been completed. The External Examiner should then update the report with any further comments after reviewing the remaining January-start provision and attending the final January-start Exam Board.
The External Examiner will be paid upon receipt of the final comments after the January-start Board.
Additional comments on January-start provision will feed into the next reporting point where appropriate.
External Examiners who oversee January-start provision only
External Examiners who oversee January-start provision only will submit their report 4 weeks after the final Exam Board.
They will be paid upon receipt of their annual report.
Comments from the annual report will feed into the next reporting point where appropriate.
