VICE CHANCELLOR
PROFESSOR SIR STEVE SMITH
AcSS
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SS/RB
24 October 2011
Dear Tim
Professor Roberts: External Examiner’s Report 2010-2011
College of Life and Environmental Studies: Biosciences
Masters Course 'Biotechnology and Enterprise
The External Examiner notes the following areas of good practice:
I am very pleased to report that a member of staff from the Business School joined the Examination
Board this year. Indeed, the person was very positive about the Course and its potential. Also I was
pleased to see that three students undertook projects externally. I believe that this is a very good
initiative, both for the students and for the Course in terms of PR.
The External Examiner makes the following recommendations:
Essential
Increase the 'enterprise' component of the B&E Course by making the module BEMM118 compulsory
and mandating that the students incorporate a SWOT analysis of their biology-based projects in order
to assess business opportunities.
The External made other comments relating to this elsewhere in his report:
In an earlier section I have expressed my frustration that the students were not firmly instructed to
relate their biology-based project to business opportunities via a SWOT analysis. I have been told that
this important issue will receive appropriate attention vis a vis the 2011/2012 intake. I commented last
year that I thought that it was a mistake that the module on Strategic Innovation Management was not a
compulsory part of the Course. Things have not changed and so I feel that I must express my opinion
again that this would seem to be a topic of importance for this Course.
The External reiterates the following recommendation from last year:
The Course Director did not take up my strong suggestion from last year that the Dissertations should
have a component dealing with the business opportunities that could be derived from the biology-based
projects. May I reiterate that, as it stands, the course is composed of two parts, Biology and Enterprise
and there is no overlap between the two sectors. The students should be instructed to think 'could this
be the basis of a business?' when occupied with laboratory work.
In addition the External makes the following recommendation under Good Practice:
I recommend that the staff member from the Business School and the Course Director should meet to
discuss the Course in depth, with regard to increasing the 'business' component.
A further recommendation for the College is made under section relating to University procedures:
There are a number of improvements that should be made. First the redaction of students' names
caused problems for this External Examiner. For example, the B&E students joined others for classes
such as Strategic Innovation Management; the class marks list is printed in alphabetical order and so
one had to find the numbers for the five B&E students amongst those for the whole class of 81
students. If you wish to redact names, class lists should be in numerical order, in my opinion. Similarly
for the Entrepreneurship module (BEMM108) with thirteen B&M students amongst the class total of
104, picked out the marks awarded for the 2000-word assignment was not easy. Also some of the finalmarks' lists that were provided were difficult to read as the marks were not aligned correctly either
horizontally or vertically on almost every occasion. The Centre should pay attention to these matters
since the results look amateur-ish to the outside observer.
Advisable
Since the marks for those Biotechnology and Enterprise students who did take the BEMM118 module
(average 58%) were lower than the class average (67%), it may be necessary to give the B&E students
more background literature.
Desirable
None
I should be grateful if the College would respond to me as required under the procedures contained in
the TQA Manual. These look to a response normally within eight weeks after appropriate internal
discussion within the College including an opportunity for input from the staff meeting and the College’s
Teaching Committee.
Please note that the University’s statement of procedures also requires that the College’s next annual
main meeting of the Boards of Examiners for the programmes in question, at which an External
Examiner is present, should include early in its agenda a copy of the External Examiner’s report and of
the College’s response.
Yours sincerely
Professor Sir Steve Smith
Vice-Chancellor
cc
Barbara Powell