External Examiners Project
Update
Anne-Marie O’Mullane
Academic Policy Officer, Academic Services
13 May 2015
Focus of Presentation
• New External Examiner Online Reporting System
• Academic Response Coordinator Role
• Making the best use of data
New Systems
External Examiner Reporting System (EERS) and Business Information
Aim of system:
The delivery of an online external examiner reporting system. The generation of online responses to external
examiners. The delivery of IT tools to facilitate the extraction of common themes from the reports at School
level, College level and at the Institution level.
Link to EERS: www.eers.is.ed.ac.uk
Channel Available on MyEd
BI Suite Reporting performing thematic analysis: https://bobi.is.ed.ac.uk/BOE/BI
Reporting and Analytics Channel on MyEd
User Guides available on Student Systems webpages:
http://www.studentsystems.ed.ac.uk/staff/User_Guides/External_Examiners/
New Online Report Form
Academic Response Coordinator
Academic Response Coordinator Role
Relevant section of policy:
“A senior person responsible for teaching and quality assurance matters, designated by the Head of School, will
take responsibility for responding to each External Examiner report by a deadline specified by the Senatus
Quality Assurance Committee. This response should demonstrate that the University has given full and serious
consideration to the comments made and indicates the actions that will be taken or not taken as a result of the
comments.”
How this operates in practice:
• Academic Response Coordinators: Views report and responds to report via EERS, can take into
consideration feedback from Readers when crafting response
• School Key Contact allocates Academic Response Coordinator based on existing practice or on
advice of colleagues and Readers to individual External Examiner Reports
• Deadline for return of response after receipt: 6 weeks
• Advantages: no cascade issues
• One Academic Response Coordinator per report
• Readers who are allocated to specific reports, will be notified once a report is submitted
Other Roles in the System
• School Key Contact: Monitors reports, allocates Academic Response
Coordinators and Readers to reports, allocates other key contacts to
manage reports
• Key Contact: Monitors reports, allocates Academic Response Coordinators
and Readers to reports
• College Key Contact: Monitors reports and allocations, chases late reports
(offline)
• College Contact: May have read access of college reports or can perform
same functions as College Key Contact
• Readers: Allocated to specific reports, will be notified once a report is
submitted
• General Readers: May view the submitted report at any time
Making best use of data
BI reports and Infospaces allow for:
- Quick and efficient analysis of report data which includes the External
Examiner report data and responses
- Analysis can be performed at School, College and University level in order
- Ability to analyse themes and subthemes
- Ability to monitor External Examiner processes and QA processes
Why? Improve QA processes, take action on matters taking into
consideration EE data, e.g. changing policies or processes, identifying and
sharing good practice, ultimately improve the student learning experience
Contacts
Queries on policy and business process queries:
Anne Marie O’Mullane/Claire Edminson, Academic Services
academicservices@ed.ac.uk; Ext 51 4979
Systems issues:
Support Team, Student Systems
studentsystems@ed.ac.uk
Training/User guides:
Jon Taylor, Training & Communications, Student Systems
Jon.Taylor@ed.ac.uk; 51 4597