Welcome to Edinburgh Napier University and thank you for taking on the role of External Examiner for our provision. Your role is vital in supporting Edinburgh Napier University to maintain our academic standards and to enhance the quality of our provision.
This resource is designed to help familiarise you with Edinburgh Napier and the School you’re working with, as well as providing information which will help support you in your role.
About the University
Edinburgh Napier University is a vibrant University, home to more than 20,000 students from over 150 countries. From its origins as Napier Technical College in 1964, it acquired University status in 1992 and in 2024 celebrated 60 years of being an educational institution. You can read more about the University’s history and journey over the last 60 years.
Since 1964, Edinburgh Napier has evolved into a bold, progressive university with a reputation and impact that stretches far beyond its shores, while staying true to its heritage as an institution that prepares graduates effectively for a range of careers, and advances knowledge that positively impacts people’s lives. Based over five academic Schools and three campus locations across Edinburgh, the University offers more than 250 degree courses to our students. The University is currently ranked number 1 modern university in Scotland and has regularly been top in Edinburgh for overall student satisfaction. You can find out more key information about the University.
We have almost 8,000 international students from 150 countries, representing 40% of our overall student population. Globally we have around 5,500 students studying online or with one of our partner institutions across the world in countries such as China, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka and Singapore.
The University’s strategy
The University’s purpose is to deliver high quality education and research, adding value to the social, cultural and economic capital of our communities and shaping their development. You can read more about the University and more about the University’s strategy and how the University is working to achieve its goals.
Our Schools
Our three campuses in Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city, provide state-of-the-art facilities for our diverse student communities. Sighthill Campus, in the west of the city, is home to our School of Applied Sciences and School of Health & Social Care, while two Schools are located in our centrally-located Merchiston campus, namely the School of Arts & Creative Industries and the School of Computing, Engineering & the Built Environment.
As External Examiner, you will be responsible for provision in one of our five Schools. To find out more about the School relevant to you, please refer to the following pages:
Some of our programmes are also delivered as Global Online provision or in partnership with one of our international partners as a Trans-National Education (TNE) programme. You may be asked to be responsible for these deliveries as well as the on-campus deliveries, considering their commonalities and differences.
More information on our online offerings can be found on our Online Study pages.
You can read more about our TNE programmes.
In some schools we also deliver Graduate Apprenticeship programmes. Find out more about our Graduate Apprenticeship programmes.
Edinburgh Napier University International College
The University also has an International College (ENUIC) operated by Oxford International (OIEG) in partnership with Edinburgh Napier to provide foundation programmes for entry into a range of degree programmes. External examiners are also required for the provision delivered through the International College. Find out more about the Edinburgh Napier University International College.
Appointment as an external examiner
Completing the application process
Once your nomination as External Examiner has been confirmed by the School and by Quality & Standards, our School Quality and Accreditation teams will be in touch to provide you with the External Examiner Appointment Form, which you are required to submit. Completion of this form, together with the External Examiners Declaration Form, is part of the appointment process and also confirms your acceptance of the role. Human Resources will then contact you to arrange a right to work check which needs to be undertaken undertake before you can be confirmed as an External Examiner and added to our payroll system.
Following confirmation of your appointment, colleagues in the relevant School will be in touch with you to provide you with more information to support you in carrying out your role, including how to access relevant programme and module information and how moderation takes place at Edinburgh Napier.
Access to systems
You will be given a temporary password to log in to Edinburgh Napier’s systems which will enable you to access all the information you need about the programmes and/or modules that you are appointed as External Examiner for. Our Information Services colleagues will be able to help you if you have any trouble setting up your password or accessing the system.
Induction opportunities
We want to support our External Examiners to carry out their role at Edinburgh Napier, and following your appointment, colleagues in the relevant School will contact you with key information related to the provision for which you are responsible. If you have any questions or issues, they will be happy to help.
You will be provided with information to allow you to carry out the role of External Examiner, which includes the University’s Quality Framework, Academic Regulations and any relevant exemptions to these regulations, as well as information about the Scottish Qualification and Certification Framework (SCQF), which is particularly important if you are not based in Scotland, to understand the context for Scottish Higher Education. There is a particularly helpful document to compare SCQF levels with levels in the rest of the UK and Ireland.
We also provide induction materials to help support you in your understanding of key policies and procedures at the University.
Your role as an external examiner at Edinburgh Napier University
Externality is a key principle of the recently-launched Tertiary Quality Enhancement Framework in Scotland, involving external specialists and peer review to enhance provision. It is also an important element of the QAA’s 2024 Quality Code in areas such as the managing quality and standards, (Principle 1 of the Quality Code) and the monitoring, evaluation and enhancement of our provision (Principle 5 of the Quality Code). Your role as External Examiner is therefore a vital part of our approach to quality at Edinburgh Napier, from reflection and advising on course assessment to considering and feeding back on marking and moderation, to involvement in our Programme Assessment Boards. The reports you submit each year are carefully considered by our programme teams and Schools and reflected upon through our annual monitoring process. Key themes identified through your reports are also discussed at University-level by key stakeholders across the University.
The role of External Examiners is described in our Academic Regulations, Section A10.
Sampling and moderating
As part of your role, we will ask you to comment on assessments to ensure that they are appropriate before asking students to undertake them. Once students have submitted assessments and these have been marked and internally moderated, you will be asked to review a sample of student work, considering such aspects as the application of assessment criteria, consistency with comments provided as well as the feedback provided to students. You may also be asked for your input into changes and developments to the provision for which you are responsible.
Programme Assessment Boards
If you are a Programme External Examiner, you will be invited to attend our Programme Assessment Boards, held online each trimester. While decisions at the Programme Assessment Boards are those of the Board as a whole, your perspective in these Boards is valuable and we hope that you will be able to attend these Boards along with other colleagues involved with the programme. Should you be unable to attend, we would ask that you provide written input to be discussed at the Board so that your views are taken into consideration.
Reporting
The reflection and feedback you provide in your annual reports is important to the University, helping us ensure that our provision is fit for purpose and provides our students with the best possible learning experience. We ask you to provide us with feedback on a number of different areas and highlight good practice that you have identified as well as any areas where you can see opportunities for enhancement. The report allows you to note any feedback at module or programme level as well as at University-level, and we will endeavour to respond to your points. The University reflects on your feedback at module, programme, School and University-level, through our annual monitoring processes, and we will provide information on the key themes in the annual reports each year, which we hope will be informative.
Our External Examiner reports are made available to our students through their programme Moodle pages, so it’s important to be aware of this when completing the report. In particular, we would ask that you don’t specifically mention students by name within your reports and would prefer also that staff members are not mentioned by name.
The report templates will be sent out to you by School Quality and Accreditation colleagues in plenty of time for completion. The dates for submission of your report varies for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to meet the requirements of the University’s reporting cycle but will generally be mid-July for undergraduate provision and the start of October for postgraduate provision. Specific dates will be provided. If you are responsible for both undergraduate and postgraduate provision, separate reports will be required, which should be submitted at the appropriate time.
Once the report is completed, please email it to your School contact (see School Contact details). If you have any technical issues completing the report, please get in touch. There may be exceptional occasions where you wish submit an additional short report to supplement your main report. If this is the case, it should be in the form of an email sent to your School contact.
Following satisfactory submission of your annual report, processing of your fee payment will take place.
Data Protection/Freedom of Information
By accepting the role of External Examiner it is important that your duty of confidentiality in relation to student work and other personal information about students, staff and third parties is recognised. You will be required to adhere to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the University's obligations under the Act with regard to such data during your relationship with the University and after this has ended. You can find out more information and guidance on the University’s Data Protection obligations from Governance Services, as well as the university's Privacy Policy.
You should also be aware that information contained in External Examiners' reports constitutes recorded information held by the University. As such, these reports will be open to disclosure if requested by any person under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 subject to the exemption available under that Act in respect of personal data. On occasions the names of specific External Examiners may also be requested and again the University would normally release this information. We include the name, position and institution of External Examiners in student programme handbooks along with a statement to explain that the role of the External Examiner is to oversee the quality and standards of the provision and that no student should be entering into direct correspondence with the external examiner.
Concerns
Should you have any concerns which you feel are not being addressed with appropriate action within the School, you have a right to raise any matter of serious concern with the Principal & Vice Chancellor, if necessary by means of a separate confidential written report.
If you have exhausted all published applicable internal procedures, including the submission of a confidential report to the head of the institution, you may invoke QAA's concerns scheme or inform the relevant professional, statutory or regulatory body.
Fee payments and expenses
Annual fee payments
Your annual fee payment follows receipt by your School of your annual report. There are different processes for UK-based External Examiners and for those based overseas.
UK-based External Examiners
- If you are a UK-based external examiner, your fee payment is made net of statutory deductions for National Insurance and tax to the bank account which you have nominated.
- Payment is made via Payroll on the University's monthly pay date, which is normally the last 28th day of the month.
- The deadline for input of fee payments is a month in advance of the pay date.
- To help ensure that your fee payments may be processed for inclusion in the payment schedule for that month. We need to receive your report in advance of the month deadline, which is usually the 10th of the month, otherwise your payment will be carried forward to the next month's pay date.
- Please keep the University informed of any changes to your personal details, including name and address.
Non-UK based External Examiners
- You should complete the Foreign Payment Request (FIN 6) form.
- Once you have submitted your report, you should email the completed FIN 6 form to your School contact.
- The payment is processed by Edinburgh Napier University's Financial Services colleagues and paid into your bank account.
Expenses claims
As our Programme Assessment Boards take place online, there is no requirement for you to travel to the University to take part in our Boards, however, should you incur expenses during the course of your external examining duties, please contact the School with which you work. A completed expenses claim to the School at the return address shown on the form, attaching original VAT receipts. Please note that debit or credit card receipts alone are not accepted.
If you have any queries about expenses claims, please get in touch with your contact in the School.
Useful contacts
If you have any questions or concerns that are not addressed on these pages, please feel free to contact your School via the relevant email address listed below:
Useful Links