Procedure for involving the chairs of the external examiners

This procedure applies to all study programmes in the Faculty of Social Sciences.

Basis

The procedure complies with Ministerial Orders, which requires that the external examiners provide advice about the exam system, including its form and content, and whether it works as intended and in accordance with the programme/basic subject and the objectives for the teaching.

Process

As part of the quality assurance of the programmes’ testing and examination system, the chairs of the external examiners submit annual reports to the universities based on submissions from the individual external examiners’ reports.

The report usually contains a summary of the external examiners’ comments, including regarding specific difficulties or particularly positive observations, the evaluation of new initiatives, etc., academic changes or amendments to forms of exam.

The Faculty of Social Sciences has set procedures for receiving these annual reports.

The chairs of the external examiners submit the annual report to the study boards on the programme concerned. The report is discussed at an annual meeting of external examiners The chairs of external examiners for each course are responsible for the report and the meeting. The head of studies is responsible for follow-up in the study boards.

The report is used as part of the general quality assurance of study programmes, i.e. in the ongoing assurance and enhancement of the quality of the programmes. The head of studies ensures that the report’s results are included in the study board’s work on curricula and in the study programme in general.

The faculty administration evaluates whether there are programme-administration issues, i.e. matters relating to rules or work routines that can/should be acted on. If so, the faculty contacts the programme administration. 

The report underpins the work to assure constructive alignment between the forms of exam and competence profiles.

Responsibility

The chairs of the external examiners

The chair of the external examiners for each course is responsible for the annual reporting.

The study board

The study board is responsible for following up on the report by the chairs of the corps of external examiners in the study board.

The Dean

The Dean is responsible for this procedure. The associate Dean discusses with the head of studies any academic aspects of the report by the chairs of the external examiners.

The Study Administration

The Study administration evaluates whether there are programme-administration issues, i.e. matters relating to rules or work routines that can/should be acted on.