5.5 Preliminary Arrangements and Right to Work in the UK

1. External Examiners who have accepted appointments shall be provided with a link to the relevant chapter of the Academic Quality Handbook by the Academic Registry to ensure that they understand and can fulfil their responsibilities. The Academic Registry will provide briefing materials and presentations online on AberLearn (Blackboard) each session for new Examiners on undergraduate and taught postgraduate schemes. In addition to the briefing day materials provided by the Academic Registry, the Advance HE handbook Fundamentals of External Examining (published February 2019) offers a comprehensive general introduction to external examining of taught schemes for new external examiners, and can be used as a reference source for both new and existing External Examiners. As part of Degree Standards project, Advance HE developed, in partnership with Office for Students, practical approaches for reinforcing UK standards of external examining in the form of a Professional development course for external examiners, which may be of interest to both new and existing External Examiners. For more information, please see: Professional development course for external examiners | Advance HE (advance-he.ac.uk) and Subject Specific Calibration Course.

2. Each External Examiner shall be supplied by the relevant academic department with copies of the syllabuses and schedules of assessment for the scheme(s) of study concerned, together with notification of the dates set for the meeting of the relevant Examining Boards.

3. In accordance with the QAA UK Quality Code for Higher Education, External Examiners names, roles and institutions will be published in a .pdf document in section 5.14 of this chapter, and may be published on departmental staff webpages and against individual modules/schemes on the module/scheme database.

4. In accordance with the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006, the University has an obligation to ensure that all those engaged in work with the University are legally eligible to work in the UK. At the time of publication of this chapter, the Right to Work checks will be undertaken by the Human Resources Department, and they will get in touch with each External Examiner to explain the process, the necessary documentation and arrange the details. A copy of the Right to Work documentation will be held by the University in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation. It will not be possible to grant external examiners access to modules and materials on Blackbioard, or process expenses or fee claims without successful completion of the Right to Work check.