External Examining at NTU

Thank you for taking on this role. Once your nomination has been approved by NTU’s External Examiner Appointments Panel (EEAP) you will receive a letter by email confirming the details of your appointment.

NTU tenures normally last four years + one term. When you confirm acceptance of the appointment, NTU Human Resources will contact you to carry out a right to work check.

Like all UK universities, NTU is required by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) to implement a Right to Work policy for all workers.

In order to take up your appointment, you will first need to provide documentary evidence, such as a UK passport, or your right to work in the UK. See the full list of eligible documents.

A colleague from the relevant academic School will contact you to arrange an induction session. This session will introduce you to the key duties of the external examiner role at NTU, and explain the key aspects of our assessment regulations and quality assurance system.

You will require two separate user logins for this role.

• External examiner reporting system: Log in to the online reporting system to write and submit your report.
  • Username: the email address you provided on your nomination form.
  • Password: sent to you by email from NTU’s External Examiner online reporting system.
• NTU account: Log in to access student work in NOW, NTU’s virtual learning environment, and other NTU applications. Please note that you must accept the Computer Use Regulations in order to activate your account.
  • Username and password: sent to you by email from your appointed school HR team once your Right to Work check is complete. Please contact the school if you have not received this.

Information about your appointment – name, position and institution – will be made available to students in line with guidance from the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA). If a student contacts you directly, please do not reply to them but instead forward the correspondence to the course leader.

The Grade-Based Assessment (GBA) was devised as a fair and non-inflationary alternative to the traditional 0-100 non-linear  marking scale. Under the 0-100 scale it’s often possible for a student to qualify for first-class honours even though the majority of their work is below that level. To achieve a first-class degree at NTU, a student has to produce work consistently at a first-class level.

We have replaced the 0-100 scale with a linear numerical scale which calculates overall module grades (for modules with more than one summative assessment element), level grades (overall achievement at the end of the year), and (crucially) degree outcomes. This linear numerical scale sits behind the scenes.:

For a full breakdown of grade schemes, see the following sections from the NTU Quality Handbook:

• 16A Appendix 1
• 16C Appendix 1

Grades take centre stage instead of numbers. A student will receive a grade – e.g. high 2.1 – instead of a number – e.g. 68 – on their marked work. Students get practice in understanding the GBA framework via formative assessment tasks as they progress through their course. Feedback on formative assessments supports students in their learning and in preparation for later and summative assessments.

All students on taught courses qualify for their final award through one of two routes:

• Majority route: Students are awarded their degree at the level at which they have performed in the majority of their qualifying credits (i.e. those credits which are used to calculate the final award). If the majority of their qualifying credits received a 2.1 level or above, they will be awarded a 2.1.
• Weighted mean route: Students are awarded their degree at the level defined by the weighted mean of their qualifying credits.

The degree outcome is decided by whichever of the two routes is the better one. Usually the two routes triangulate onto the same outcome. These different routes are both simple, transparent, and fair .