Skip to main content
Directorate of Governance and Legal Services

Breadcrumb

  1. Directorate of Governance and Legal Services (DGLS)
  2. Quality and Standards
  3. External examiners
  4. External examiners - info for staff

External examiners: information for staff

This page provides information and guidance to staff about the external examiner system for taught programmes at Queen Mary. Please see the webpages of the Research Degrees Office for information regarding research programmes. 

External examiners and external members appointed by Queen Mary have their own resources page which provides guidance, regulations and templates.  Details of this site is provided at appointment and referenced in all subsequent correspondence. The site can be accessed here.

External examiners form an integral part of the quality assurance and enhancement processes at Queen Mary.  The purpose of the external examiner system is:

  • to ensure that Queen Mary’s degrees are comparable in standard to those awarded by other UK universities
  • to ensure fairness and consistency in assessment procedures and student classification
  • to scrutinise the effectiveness and appropriateness of the assessment system 
  • to assure the wider community of the standard of Queen Mary awards

Please see Section 8 of the Assessment Handbook for full details of External Examining at Queen Mary. 

Procedures for the appointment of external examiners and external members

SEB Chairs should consult with colleagues on potential nominees for the role of external examiner, and nominees must meet the Queen Mary criteria:

Criteria for the Nomination of External Examiners (Taught).pdf [PDF 86KB]:

The deadline for nominations is 30 June for appointments to start the following September, and completed forms should be sent to Alice de Havillan with a short CV, of no more than two pages. 

DGLS will record and review nominations before passing these on to the relevant Faculty Dean for final approval.  DGLS will return any nominations which do not meet, or contravene, the criteria for appointment.

External examiners appointments run from 1st September to 31st December 4 years later.

External Examiner Nomination Form.docx [DOC 52KB]

In exceptional circumstances a further fifth year extension may be requested.  The extension request form below, requires SEBs to provide justification for these exceptional cases, usually where a programme is being taught out.  The form must be completed by the SEB and returned to Alice de Havillan

External examiner extension request form [DOC 39KB] (Word document)

External examiner fee payment forms for Schools/Institutes

External examiners are paid on receipt of their annual report, and reports are submitted following the main SEB (July (UG) or Sept (PG)).  To avoid delay, SEBs should email all payment forms shortly after the SEB to to Alice de Havillan, Academic Standards and Quality Officer. The Directorate of Governance and Legal Services (DGLS) will then liaise with the external to provide the relevant paperwork for Payroll to process the request once the report is received.

Fee calculation charts:

Right to work checks - Please note that SEBs are required to carry out cursory right to work checks for all new external examiners at the start of the academic year.  This ensures the external has the relevant documents required by HR before they carry out any work for the SEB.  Confirmation of documents is usually carried out when externals first visit Queen Mary (for any reason) and the verified documentation sent to DGLS with the payment instruction. 

This check only needs to be carried out once, in the first year of appointment, and SEBs are reminded that this is an HR requirement for fee payment.  Full guidance can be found on the HR webpages: http://hr.qmul.ac.uk/workqm/righttowork/.

Should you require any further information or advice with regards to any matter relating to External Examiners, please contact Alice de Havillan, Academic Standards and Quality Officer.

Back to top