External examiners have a vital role to play not only in terms of maintaining the high academic standards and programme quality at BU, but also in making sure that our standards and the performance of our students are comparable to those at other UK universities. Their remit also extends to the assessment process, ensuring that the process itself is sound and fairly operated and that the university’s awards are appropriately set and maintained.

External examiner reports

External examiners submit annual reports to the university. These reports are used to judge whether individual programmes or frameworks are meeting their objectives and maintaining the standard of the award they lead to. They are central and integral elements of institutional processes, particularly for continuous monitoring, ongoing enhancement, and the review of all our programmes.

External examiners submitting reports to BU must use our online reporting tool. Once an external examiner has completed their report a standard claim form should be emailed to the university’s Academic Quality team - please refer to the Get in touch section below for our contact details. All of the relevant forms will be sent out to our external examiners by the relevant faculty contact.

Becoming an external examiner at BU

Within one year of being appointed as an external examiner at BU, you will be expected to attend a briefing seminar, which will introduce you to the university’s processes and regulations. We usually hold two of these briefing seminars each year, in March and November.

All of our Academic Regulations, Policies and Procedures are available online. The key documents are:

  • 6N - External Examining: Policy and Procedure
  • 6A - Standard Assessment Regulations

You can also access the following documents at the same site:

  • 6D - Marking, Independent Marking and Moderation: Policy and Procedure
  • 6F - Generic Assessment Criteria: Procedure
  • 6K - Assessment Boards: Policy and Procedure
  • 6L - Assessment Board Decision-making, including the Implementation of Assessment Regulations: Procedure.

Get in touch

Claim forms should be signed and emailed to [email protected]

Academic Quality
Bournemouth University
Studland House,
12 Christchurch Road, 
Bournemouth
BH1 3NA
UK