The Higher Education Academy and External Examining

The Higher Education Academy is continuing a programme of research and development aimed at improving the support given to external examiners and the function of external examining. A Working Group has been set up within the Higher Education Academy to build knowledge about current Subject Centre activities with respect to supporting external examiners, and to investigate the potential for external examiner enhancement and support functions.

Possible roles for the Higher Education Academy might be to enhance the status of external examining as a professional function in higher education as well as to provide information about good and effective practice and to help external examiners to fulfil their role better.

The Academy's External Examiners web pages contain a wide variety of resources and information about external examining including:

• Review of External Examining arrangements 2010 (UUK and Guild HE)
• Guide for Busy Academics: Enhancing Support for External Examining
• Understanding of the external examining process (January 2005) Norman Jackson

Related activity in other Subject Centres

Various Subject Centres, for example the Hospitality Leisure, Sport and Tourism Network, SWAP (Social Work and Policy), Centre for the Built Environment (CEBE), UK Centre for Legal Education (UKCLE), Business Management, Accountancy and Finance, Psychology and the Economics Network, are setting up networks of external examiners, allowing current or potential examiners to register which can then be passed onto institutions and allow information about changes in external examining to be disseminated.

Both GEES (Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences) and the English Subject Centre have produced reports into external examining in their own subject areas. The Centre for Medicine Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine held a workshop looking at "the role of the external examiner of health care undergraduate programmes".