External examiner development day Thursday 4 April

On Thursday 4 April we will be hosting our 2019 External Examiner Development Day. We will be discussing ‘grade inflation’ in higher education, the history of the external examining system, as well as an overview of the university’s 2017-2018 external examiner reports. This will be a great opportunity to hear from industry experts, network with (likeminded) individuals and develop yourself as an external examiner.

Event Schedule

09:30: D1-042/D1-046, Senate House Arrival & registration for recently appointed External Examiners Refreshments, networking

10:00: Welcome, programme for the day, housekeeping. Dr Paul Birkett, Senior Policy & Practice Advisor (Quality Assurance) Opening address Prof Patrick McGhee, Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Quality)

10:15: Central Induction Activities Angela Nuttall, Standards & Enhancement Officer

11:00: Senate House, Main Reception before proceeding to D2-020 Welcome to current External Examiners – Refreshments

11:15: D1-042/D1-046, Senate House Overview of the University’s External Examiner Reports 2017-18 Prof Vic Grout, Institutional Senior External Examiner Dr Anne Miller, Academic Registrar

12:00: Buckle up, Buttercup! From 0 to 190 ish (years) in some seconds… A tour of the external examining system to the present day Katie Akerman, Director of Quality and Standards, University of Chichester

13:00: D2-20, Senate House Lunch

13:45: D1-042/D1-046, Senate House ‘Grade Inflation’ in Higher Education A range of potential ways of mitigating the risks will be introduced, followed by small group discussion & feedback Facilitated by Dr Paul Birkett, Senior Policy & Practice Advisor (Quality Assurance)

14:45: Closing Remarks Prof Patrick McGhee, Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Quality)

15:00: End of plenary activities. Those External Examiners who require it may take advantage of a brief familiarisation and/or problem-solving workshop on the use of the Qualtrack application to compile & submit their External Examiner Reports online Angela Nuttall, Dr Paul Birkett Otherwise, Programme Leaders accompany External Examiners for refreshments, to meet with Programme Teams and/or students and/or tour facilities, as arranged The departure point for those External Examiners who are not involved in either of the foregoing activities

16:00: onwards Departure Buckle Up, Buttercup! From 0 To 190 Ish (Years) In Some Seconds… Katie Akerman, Director of Quality and Standards, University of Chichester Katie will take us on a tour of the external examining system to the present day, complete with circling several roundabouts several times, stopping at the well-known picnic sites of Calibration, Grade Inflation (more colloquially known as Grade Improvement by some locals) and Training, concluding at the junction of the future via the traffic lights of media doom.

Where is the external examining system going? Speaker Biography Katie Akerman is currently Director of Quality & Standards at the University of Chichester. She was educated at the Universities of Humberside and Exeter and subsequently held academic administration and managerial posts at the Universities of New South Wales, Southampton, Winchester and Bath Spa, in addition to working for the QAA in Development Officer/Assistant Director capacities. Katie is a Fellow of both the Association of University Administrators and the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce), and is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is a member of the HEA Quality Advisory Board, the ARC Quality Practitioners’ Group, the Quality Strategy Network Executive and the GuildHE Quality Management Network; she has also acted as external adviser or HE Board member to more than a dozen HE and FE institutions, as a reviewer for the HEA National Teaching Fellowship Scheme, as an international reviewer to the Higher Education Training and Awards Council, and is a current external examiner. Katie’s specialisms are quality management in higher education (academic standards; quality of learning opportunities; quality enhancement) and overseas collaborative arrangements. She has published on the topic of external examining. In addition, she has an inexplicable attraction to rollercoasters and a rather more understandable interest in collecting carnival glass.