Appointment and induction

The overall responsibility for the selection of potential external examiners lies with the Associate Dean (Education), who should liaise with heads of school and programme leaders to identify suitable candidates. New appointments are made before the start of the academic year. All external examiners for undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes are appointed for four academic years starting on 1 October. Academic Quality Services will send regular updates to schools and departments detailing which appointments are due to expire and need to be replaced.

It is extremely important that all appointments are unreciprocated, impartial and made in strict accordance with the University of Surrey's code of practice for external examining: taught programmes. Items 13-14 of the code of practice for external examining: taught programmes give the full eligibility criteria and restrictions for the appointment of external examiners.

Nomination Form for external examiner appointments (docx).

Section A of the Nomination Form should be completed and signed by the candidate. Section B should be completed by the programme team and signed by the relevant Associate Head of Education.

Completed forms are submitted to ExternalExaminers@surrey.ac.uk for processing, on behalf of the Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Academic. A bi-annual report on new external examiner appointments is submitted to the Senate Progression and Conferment Executive (SPACE) for subsequent endorsement, thus completing the approval process.

Human Resources will send official letters of appointment to external examiners at the start of their tenure, which define the terms and period of their employment. 

The external examiner’s module allocation and annual honorarium fee will be confirmed to them by ExternalExaminers@surrey.ac.uk.

Access to programme and module pages on Surreylearn is arranged by the Academic Administration team.

For information on the University’s expectation of the external examiner’s role and duties, please see the Code of Practice for External Examining: Taught Programmes.

Please review our most recent External Examiner Induction materials on Surreylearn, and the timeline overview (PDF) for external examiners.

Please also familiarize yourself with the A1: Regulations for Taught Programmes and the Code of Practice for Assessment and Feedback.

SurreyLearn is the University’s virtual learning environment (VLE). It is a secure online environment which can be used in a wide variety of ways to enhance learning and teaching. Typically it is used to provide easy access to up to date and relevant learning materials, module and programme information and guidance, supplemented by activities such as discussion forums, quizzes or tests, and online assignments.

To improve the external examining process, external examiners are able to access all applicable assessments (coursework, exams, class tests, etc) and their feedback/grades via SurreyLearn.

Please be aware that external examiner access to the online submissions in SurreyLearn is not 100% read-only. There is a small risk of changing the grades, so please take care not to adjust any scores.

In order to access external examiner’s materials on SurreyLearn, you need to have an active Surrey IT account. If you have not yet done so, please activate your account. 

Your university number begins with a 9 and is provided to you by HROperations@surrey.ac.uk.

After successfully logging into SurreyLearn, please see the external examiner section of the TEL Hub which contains guidance and tutorials on how to navigate Surreylearn.

You should also have access to the relevant Programme Information pages and your allocated module areas. If, once you have logged in to Surreylearn, you do not have access to these, please contact AcademicAdministration@surrey.ac.uk.

Within each module area you'll have access to all the assessment submissions. External Examiners may be able to select their own sample to review or may have a sample flagged in advance by the Assessments Team. External Examiners should confirm their specific arrangements with their Assessments Administrator when they commence their role. If Examiners are provided a flagged sample, they can follow the guidance in the video tutorial on how to access your flagged samples, or follow the steps below:

1. Within the relevant module area in SurreyLearn, select 'assessment' from the toolbar
2. Choose 'assignments' from the menu
3. Choose the relevant submission folder from the list
4. Select the 'submissions' tab
5. If submissions are not already displayed, select 'show search options' to show the search options
6. In the 'flag status' drop-down menu, choose 'files with flags' and then select the search/magnifying glass to initiate the search
7. The flagged submissions (i.e. the sample) will then be displayed.

If you require further help with accessing your selected sample for external verification, please login to SurreyLearn and then go to the external examiner section of the TEL Hub, where you can find screenshots and video tutorials. For additional help and support, please contact your link assessment administrator.

For additional help and support, please contact AcademicAdministration@surrey.ac.uk.

Please note that module leaders might leave feedback on student work directly in SurreyLearn or they may choose to use Turnitin Feedback Studio, or a combination of both, depending on their preference and the specific piece of assessment.

View the video tutorial about how to access this feedback, or follow the steps below:

Accessing feedback via SurreyLearn

1. After filtering the submissions to just show the sample for that module, select the relevant student's file name to access their submitted coursework. If the student has submitted more than one document, you may need to review them all.
2. The left-side of the screen will show the content of that student's submitted coursework document, where applicable (some file types do not open natively within SurreyLearn - you may need to download the file to open it instead).
3. The grade and SurreyLearn feedback (where applicable) will be shown on the right-side of the screen. This feedback may consist of:
   1. a marking rubric - select the link to open it in a resizeable and moveable pop-up window
   2. the grade for the piece of work
   3. general text-based feedback
   4. any uploaded feedback document(s) - select the document's filename to open/download them.

Accessing feedback via Turnitin Feedback Studio

1. In addition to any SurreyLearn-based feedback, the module tutor(s) may have chosen to provide feedback via Turnitin Feedback Studio. If this is the case, select 'Markup Document' (e) to access this feedback.
2. The feedback in Turnitin Feedback Studio (where applicable) may be left in a number of ways:
   1. Annotations/comments - select one of the floating boxes to view the annotation/comment
   2. Feedback summary - this may consist of a voice audio comment or general text comment
   3. Grading form/rubric - module tutor(s) can design their own marking criteria and use this form/rubric to provide feedback.
3. After reviewing this student's submission, close the Feedback Studio browser tab/window and you'll be taken back to SurreyLearn.
4. Select the 'back to folder submissions' button to return to the list of students. NOTE - you will need to repeat the filter by flag process to only show the flagged submissions, and move onto the next student.

If you require further help with accessing your selected sample for external verification, please login to SurreyLearn and then go to the external examiner section of the TEL Hub, where you can find screenshots and video tutorials. For additional help and support, please contact your link assessment administrator. 

In addition to being able to access the coursework submissions and the feedback to students and grades, external examiners can also access online class-test and exam submissions where these have been uploaded/facilitated via SurreyLearn.

View a video tutorial, or follow the steps below:

1. Within the relevant module area in SurreyLearn, select 'assessment' from the toolbar
2. Choose 'tests' from the menu
3. Alongside the relevant test in the list, select the corresponding black arrow
4. Choose 'grade' from the menu
5. The list of student attempts will appear. You should have previously been provided with a list of the students within the sample - type a student's name into the search box and click on the magnifying glass to find their graded script.
6. For the relevant student, select 'attempt 1' (or the most recent attempt where applicable) beneath their name
7. The marked script will then be displayed. This shows you:
   • the name of the student
   • the date that student took the test, the duration of the test and the time that student took to complete the test
   • the grade the student achieved for that test
   • any feedback provided by the tutor
   • the class test/exam may consist of various question types. For multiple choice questions, each question with possible answers are shown and the following marking key:
     • 'Tick' = indicates the answer the student chose  was correct
     • 'Cross' = indicates the answer the student chose was incorrect
     • 'Arrow' = indicates the correct answer if the student chose an incorrect answer
   • each question's individual score, including whether the marker subsequently adjusted the score
8. After reviewing the student's graded attempt, select 'cancel' at the bottom of the screen and search for the next student.

If you require further help with accessing your selected sample for external verification, please login to SurreyLearn and then go to the external examiner section of the TEL Hub, where you can find screenshots and video tutorials. For additional help and support, please contact your link assessment administrator.

Depending on the specific assessment, there are occasions when a module tutor may provide grades and feedback to the students via SurreyLearn even when the students don't actually submit their coursework online. An example situation may be where the students perform a live presentation and the tutor provides feedback via SurreyLearn. The process by which external examiners access this feedback (and potentially the piece of assessment) differs from the standard process.

View a video tutorial, or follow the steps below:

1. Within the relevant module area in SurreyLearn, select 'progress' from the toolbar
2. Based on the student sample list you should have previously received, select a student from the class list or search for a particular student via the Search box (click on the magnifying glass icon to initiate the search).
3. Select 'assignments' from the list of tools on the left-hand side.
4. Under the relevant coursework title, choose 'details'.
5. The grade and feedback provided for that student will be shown. Click on any attached documents to open / download them.