Welcome to the University of Southampton

We would like to extend a warm welcome to all our external examiners

This site is aimed at all external examiners for taught programmes and is in addition to the External Examiner Procedures, the University’s Quality Handbook and the programme level information the School will provide.

On this site external examiners will find all the information they need in one place at the start and throughout their appointment.

Professor Deborah Gill
Vice-President (Education & Student Experience) 

Hello and welcome to the University of Southampton. We’re very grateful that you’ve agreed to work with us as an external examiner.

At the University, we take the role of external examiners extremely seriously. Your input, your experience and your advice will be key – not only in allowing us to be confident about the quality of what we offer, but also in helping us to develop and enhance the quality of our offering. 

We’re very committed to working effectively and positively with our external examiner’s and we’ve developed a range of resources which I hope you’ll find helpful as you find your way into that role and work with us over the forthcoming period of your appointment.We’re very much looking forward to learning from your experience, your judgment and your insight and I hope that during your time with us you’ll find that that you can learn something from us too. I hope that it’s an enjoyable and collegial time.

A photo of Anna Barney
Professor Anna Barney
Associate Vice President (Education)

My name is Anna Barney and I’m the Associate Vice President (Education). We’re really grateful to you for taking on the role of external examiner for us.  We know that this is quite a commitment of time and effort, but it’s really important to us to help support the academic standards and quality  of our programs. We want to support you in your role, and I hope that the training that you can see on this website is going to help you with that. 

Your main contact will be with the programme leads and with the Student Education Support teams that look after our assessment processes, but you’re very welcome to contact me or our Vice President, Deborah Gill, if you want to discuss anything.

We hope that you enjoy your role, and we look forward to hearing any comments you have that might help us to improve our programs or enhance the student experience.

University Structure

The University is organised into five Faculties, and each Faculty hosts a number of Schools, departments and subject area as set out here.  In addition the University has a campus in Malaysia delivering programmes in business, economics and engineering: Malaysia Campus.

The management of the University’s academic quality processes are supported at a Faculty level, by a Faculty Curriculum and Quality Assurance Team. 

The oversight of the University’s academic quality processes are overseen at the School level by a School Programmes Committee (SPC) and chairing each SPC is the Deputy Head of School (Education).  The Deputy Head of School (Education) also supports the Directors of Programmes, Head of Programmes and Programme Teams to ensure adherence to the University’s Quality Monitoring and Enhancement Framework.

Each School has either an Administration and Assessment Team or a Programme Administration Team that supports them will all aspects of the academic administration and student experience functions.  Each Faculty is led by a Head of Faculty Student Administration.

The appointment of External examiners and the external examiner reporting process is overseen by a team located in the Academic Registry.  They work closely with colleagues in Faculties and Schools to ensure that your experience is as seamless as possible. 

Other Professional Services teams are involved although you may not need to be in touch with them directly.  Our colleagues in Human Resources ensure that external examiner contracts are recorded correctly (for UG programmes only), Right to Work checks are undertaken (for UG programmes only), and government sanctioned quality and diversity reporting is undertaken.  Our colleagues in Finance will process your expenses claims, ensuring that the University’s Financial Regulations are adhered to.  They will also make payments to you, upon completion of the require external examiner reports.  You can read more about Fees and Expenses.

Deputy Head of School Education

Depending on the academic structure of the School, or its size, you should expect to speak with the Deputy Head of School Education (or their nominee) at the start of your appointment.  Often, it is preferable for this to be delegated to a Director of Programmes of Head of Taught Programmes who will be more closely aligned to a subject/discipline and able to provide a more detailed overview of the programmes that you have been appointed to..

The Deputy Head of School Education (or their nominee) will discuss with you the external and internal drivers behind the strategic direction of the School such as:

  • Interactions with University strategic major projects
  • Responses to student experience surveys and NSS results
  • Engagement with external stakeholders, and where relevant PSRB interactions.
  • Current strategic School based projects impacting programmes
  • Impacts of Faculty based decisions relating to resources, staffing etc.
  • School based assessment strategies and learning, teaching philosophies
  • Compliance frameworks within which the School works
  • Links with collaborative agencies, branch campuses or Education Partnerships
  • Programme Approval and Review proposals (were relevant to improving the external examiners understanding of the programme life cycle)

If you have not received an induction from the Programme Team, or do not feel prepared to undertake your role as an external examiner, when you are asked to do so, you should contact the Deputy Head of School Education in the first instance. 

Programme Team

The programme team is used here as a homogenous group of academic colleagues responsible for the teaching, assessment and operation of the programme(s) that you have been appointed to.  In addition to the teaching roles, many will have an administrative role, such as Examinations Officer, Chair of Board of Examiners, Senior Tutor, Diversity Officer etc., and together they are expected to make sure that you have all that you need to have as complete oversight as possible.  Whilst you are entitled to have access to all programme documentation, it is neither sensible nor aspirational for you to be expected to review examples of student work from ALL modules that may be taught across one or more programmes. 

Rather programme teams are encouraged to work with you, in partnership, to determine which modules that they most benefit from having your input.  The programme team will then communicate this with the Administration and Assessment team or the Programme Administration Team.  You should expect to have these conversations annually.  Examples of modules that you may be asked to review in more detail are:

  • Modules with failure rates above the School criteria
  • Modules with a new Module Lead
  • Modules that have substantially changed their assessment strategy in recent years
  • Instances where the assessment has proved unexpectedly challenging
  • Instances where marking and moderation has been challenging
  • Modules that have seen particularly positive or less than positive student feedback
  • Modules that have requested your insight to discuss innovative updates or changes they are proposing in the future

Examinations Officer

The Examinations Officer acts as a source of advice on regulatory matters affecting assessment and co-ordinates and manage the academic examination procedures for a School or a defined discipline group. They are responsible for ensuring that they run in a smooth, effective and consistent manner.  You should hear regularly from the Examinations Officer on aspects such as:

  • Receiving the dates and times of Boards of Examiners
  • Changes to relevant Regulations
  • Ensuring that your comments on examination papers are responded to suitably

Faculty Curriculum and Quality Assurance Team

The Faculty Curriculum and Quality Assurance Team act as a conduit between yourself and the programme teams during the nomination process, and later in supporting Schools to check that all EE reports have been received and responses have been returned.  They also fill in School based financial information onto claim forms and submit these directly to colleagues in Finance. 

  • Nomination template (all aspects of completion)
  • Receive and process your claim forms and submit to finance on your behalf.

Administration and Assessment team or a Programme Administration Team

Depending on the structure, size and complexity of Schools, there will either be a Administration and Assessment Team or a Programme Administration Team, but their role in supporting you will be broadly similar.  They will act as a conduit between yourself and the programme team during the operation of the assessment process.  All administrative and operational aspects of the assessment process will be overseen by these teams including providing you with: 

  • dates of Boards of Examiners
  • opportunities to meet with students
  • arrangements for your visit to Southampton
  • the provision of student work

Colleagues in this team will give you access to student work via one or more password protected online systems.  Depending on the functionality selected by the School, this may be via the University’s e-assignment system, the University’s VLE, Blackboard (although Moodle is used in one School) a Microsoft SharePoint or other secure delivery route.  It is important that you keep the username and password that you are given at appointment somewhere safe, so that you can access these systems (and the resources within) throughout your appointment.

Academic Registry

The colleagues in the Academic Registry undertake activities that are generally more strategic in nature or require stricter security considerations.  Regulatory and statutory checks are undertaken by this team and the documentary aspects of your appointment are controlled by this team.  The team also oversees the monitoring and evaluation of external examiner reporting, via the External Examiner Scrutiny Group to the Academic Quality and Standards Subcommittee.  Therefore, there role includes the:

  • Processing of completed and approved nominations forms
  • Creation of user names and passwords to access University systems
  • Undertaking of Right to Work checks (UG external examiners only)
  • Provision of appointment letters and adherence to HR and Finance requirements
  • Oversight of EE reporting process

Course description documents

The University’s course description documents (CDD’s), the documents made available to prospective students are available here.  Once you are appointed, School will be able to provide you with copies of more detailed programme information.  The majority of programme teams upload the programme information that students need onto Blackboard (the University VLE) and you can access this once you have returned your signed appointment letter and received your University login.

University Strategy

Our Triple Helix Approach

Our strategy sets out the direction and goals for our University’s future. It is based on our core purpose, to inspire excellence to achieve the remarkable and build an inclusive world. Our people are our University; they are at the heart of everything we do and the impact we make on a local to global scale.

Visiting the University of Southampton

As mentioned above, you are welcome to visit the University at any time.  Any visit should be arranged in consultation with the Programme Team, as there may be opportunities to coincide these visits with Design Shows, end of year presentations, SSLC meetings etc.  It is normal for one visit per year to take place, however, with the agreement of the Programme Team, and subject to budgetary approval, more regular visits may be possible if deemed necessary.

Follow this link for information on our campuses and how to get here.

Our Address: University of Southampton, University Road, Southampton, SO17 1BJ