The ExPeRA project aims to review the purpose and practice of external examination of taught programmes across nine degree awarding bodies with a view to informing future practice. It will examine if there is a shared understanding among examiners and institutions of the purpose of external examination. It also seeks to explore whether current forms and approaches to external examination are fit for purpose in the changing higher education landscape.
This is a collaboration between the IUA Quality Officers Group representing
Dublin City University, Maynooth University, Trinity College Dublin, UCC, UCD, University of Galway, University of Limerick (UL), TU Dublin, NUI
The project has been funded by Quality & Qualifications Ireland through the QQI Anniversary Fund Awards for Projects on Assessment and Confidence in HE Qualifications included in the NFQ.
The higher education landscape has changed significantly with the introduction of a broadening range of programmes and award types and multiple forms and settings for assessment. The ExPERa project will examine the alignment between the purpose of external examining of taught programmes as set out in quality assurance policies and procedures with the experience of external examiners and academic staff. The project will
- Examine the role of external examining and external examiners across the participating Universities
- Evaluate the alignment of the role of external examiner with the intended purpose of the examiner role, as outlined in institutional polices.
- Explore ways to develop further the role of external examination to have a greater focus on quality enhancement while preserving the integrity of assessment and academic standards.
You have been invited to participate in the survey as you are
- an external examiner appointed by a degree awarding body in the Republic of Ireland or
- you are the academic lead (e.g. course director, module leader, programme chair) working in a higher education institution who engages with external examiners currently appointed by a degree awarding body in the Republic of Ireland.
Participation in this survey is voluntary.
Data collection is taking place over two phases, this survey being phase 1.
Your responses to this survey are anonymous and cannot be linked to you
Phase 2 of data collection which will be through a workshop, will take place in late Autumn 2023
The project has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences at University of Limerick (Ref: 2023-05-26-AHSS).
Information on how your personal data will be held and retained can be found in the Data Privacy Notice
The QQI-funded ExPeRA report was launched on Wed 23rd April in St Laurence's Church at TU Dublin. The report findings were presented by Dr. Sinead O'Sullivan (UL) at the event chaired by Dr. Sorcha Ui Chonnachtaigh (National University of Ireland) with an engaging workshop on social moderation and calibration of standards, led by Dr. Ian Sadler (Liverpool John Moores University.)
The report concludes with a list of 10 considerations for higher education institutions when devising external examining policies and practice.
- Are our policies clear as to the purpose of EE and what elements are important to our institution?
- Have we communicated this to External Examiners and our staff?
- How do we know that the feedback loop has been closed?
- Is there a balance of remote, virtual and face to face activity?
- Are materials accessible and organised appropriately for External Examiners and external examining?
- Are there opportunities for spreading the workload through the year/semester?
- Are there opportunities for collaborative examining? Meetings of subject and programme externs? Team externing for large programmes?
- Are there development opportunities for staff to discuss standards and (re)-evaluate their own benchmarks?
- Is external examining included or reflected properly in our workload allocation model?
- Do we need to revisit recruitment practices and remuneration of external examiners?