Instructions for Assessment Officers and Chairs of Boards of Examiners
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1. Introduction
This document outlines the key aspects of examination governance and administration as a set of instructions for assessment officers and chairs of boards of examiners. The authoritative source of Board of Examiner regulations is the Code of Assessment, 2025-26. References below prefixed with § refer to the Code.
Processes outlined in this document were also communicated in May 2025 as good practice, and following feedback and further discussion, are here included as instructions to Boards.
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2. Governance Structure
Head of School: The Head of School has final responsibility for managing the assessment scheme of all degrees in their School (§16.54). This includes their oversight of examiner appointments, assessment procedures, and quality assurance mechanisms. Where they delegate any of these functions, they should regularly reassess the schedule of delegation to ensure it is valid and the actions are being carried out to their satisfaction. Under the Code, Heads of School must ensure appropriate training is provided to all Internal Examiners, including those who are not permanent academic staff of the University (§16.57).
Chair of the Board of Examiners: For each Board, the Head of School either acts as Chair or appoints a suitably qualified senior academic colleague to act as Chair (§16.66). A suitable delegate Chair would be a person with a good knowledge of the assessment regulations, experience of chairing meetings, and with sufficient seniority to ensure the Board exercises appropriate rigour.
Assessment Officer(s): For each course, the Head of School appoints one or more academic or senior administrative staff members as Assessment Officer(s). This role is the operational core of the assessment process, and they are primarily charged with ensuring procedural integrity and administrative diligence (§16.58). A single Assessment Officer (AO) may oversee multiple courses, or responsibilities may be distributed across multiple AOs at School level. As with the Chair of Boards of Examiners, an Assessment Officer should have sufficient seniority to ensure colleagues’ appropriate attention to assessment regulations and timelines.
The key responsibilities of the AO are outlined in §16.58 and include:
- Results Processing: Taking the provisional results of courses and ensuring processes are in place to verify their robustness and accuracy, having results scrutinized in advance of the meeting by at least two named persons (appointed by the Chair), reporting the outcome of the scrutiny procedure and all results to the Board of Examiners, receiving the Board’s confirmation of the results, and ensuring authenticated results are conveyed to the Registry.
- Documentation Management: Ensuring course documentation accurately describes assessment schemes and procedures.
- Administrative and security coordination: Supervising candidate lists, submission recording, and special needs arrangements, and maintaining the security of examination papers, assessed work, and records throughout the assessment period.
Where these tasks are distributed across multiple AOs (for example, where one person takes responsibility for the scrutiny of the examination process and the AO’s functions at Board of Examiners, and another colleague is responsible for the administrative coordination of examination papers and conveying results to the Registry), it is essential that a clear schedule of the division of tasks is drawn up so that no tasks fall between multiple AOs. This schedule should be based on the list of functions of the AO in the Code at §16.58.
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3. Boards of Examiners
Membership: The Board of Examiners comprises Internal and External Examiners, staff acting as Clerk(s), the Assessment Officer(s), and a Chair (§16.66). None of these functions can be carried out simultaneously by the same individual, so for example the Assessment Officer must not chair the Board. External Examiners' functions can be discharged by email but they should attend at least one board per year. The Internal Examiners invited to a Board are only those who have suitable knowledge of the regulations and have undertaken their preparatory work for the business of the Board (either as acting as formal reviewers or by affirming they have undertaken pre-scrutiny of the board data).
Primary Function: The Board of Examiners serves as the body which determines assessment outcomes through collective review. It provides a forum where both internal academic perspectives and external independent oversight converge to ensure academic standards are maintained. The chairing by the Head of School or their delegate must ensure that appropriate institutional authority and critical oversight is exercised in the assessment process.
Scheduling: Boards of Examiners should be scheduled with due attention given to the necessary time before a Board for the scrutiny process by reviewers, then the time necessary to prepare the data pack, then the time necessary for the Clerk and other staff to perform their data handling checks, then the time necessary to ensure marks are input correctly. Many areas separate the Board meetings which deal with programme results from the Board meetings which deal with course results, sometimes by over a week or more. This is good practice, especially for large programmes, in order to give each task appropriate space.
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4. The Conduct of Boards
The Code of Assessment has for a very long time required that the meeting of a Board of Examiners is where results are confirmed. The Code at §16.66f states that: “The Board of Examiners shall receive reports on these advance checking and verification processes, and shall on that basis and any other evidence available to it validate and certify the provided provisional results”.
Scrutiny: Boards should not be undertaking initial scrutiny or verification processes “live” in the meeting itself. The nature of scrutiny is not easily compatible with the collective viewing of complex data in a time-constrained environment. Rather, scrutiny and checking should take place in advance within a clear, documented framework with sufficient time dedicated to the work, and the Board of Examiners instead assesses the overall effectiveness of that scrutiny, receives reports from the AO(s) on the outcomes of various verification processes, and then it can validate and confirm these results (see below). A robust pre-scrutiny framework is essential for the rigour and efficiency of Boards.
Appointment of Reviewers: The Chair should therefore appoint a minimum of three qualified reviewers to conduct scrutiny checks before each Board of Examiners. (The Code requires “at least” two, and at least three are recommended to provide necessary cover for colleague unavailability.) At least one reviewer should be an Assessment Officer. Reviewers must possess relevant expertise in course and programme administration and must allocate dedicated time for scrutiny in the period before Boards.
Briefing: In advance of a Board of Examiners, the Chair should check the instructions issued regarding the conduct of Boards as well as the Key Changes to the University Regulations and issue any necessary reminders to Board attendees in relation to the regulations applicable to those Boards.
Data Integrity: Before review of the overall process commences, named MPA colleagues should complete their data integrity checks, auditing transfer accuracy between systems, confirming their system’s integrity, spot-checking any formulae in use, and so on.
Timescales: It is essential to note that sufficient time for administrative and academic data entry and validation is one of the most significant factors in the accuracy of results and the effective running of a Board of Examiners. Chairs and AOs must ensure that there is a published timescale for the work of a Board with the turnaround time of each task agreed in advance with the relevant staff. Scrutiny of marks therefore will occur after a results dataset is “locked” for review. Late returns of marks to a Board must not be allowed where marks come in after a dataset is locked, as this can compromise the scrutiny and checking of the provisional results to be presented to a Board. In the case of results which are only available after the published deadline for locking provisional results for verification and scrutiny, then the Chair must decide if the meeting of the Board should be delayed, if a short supplementary meeting should be arranged to validate these specific results, or if validation of the relevant results should be delayed until the next meeting of the Board. In this instance, because of the potential impact on graduation or the student experience, the Head of School should be informed of the delay and its reasons; the Head of School has the responsibility of contacting both the relevant student(s) concerned and the Registry regarding the delay.
Review: The Board’s Clerk will issue the Board’s dataset to reviewers, who conduct their scrutiny until they are satisfied with the outcomes and are confident the provisional results are ready for a Board of Examiners. Suggested checks include:
- Oversight scanning for expected patterns and distributions
- Random spot checks confirming correctness of standard outcomes
- Scanning for anomalies, outliers, or unusual patterns (including impossible totals)
- Analysis of fails and unusual outcomes
- Verification that component weightings match course specifications
- Confirmation that grade scales are correct and translated accurately
- Validation that administrative grades (such as EC) are applied correctly
- Verification that manual penalties or caps (such as Conduct outcomes) are correctly applied
- Confirmation that any other manual interventions are valid and justified
- Validation of progression rules and any local degree classification rules
- Identification of difficult or uncertain outcomes for Board discussion
Reviewers will discuss (e.g. in person, by email, on Teams, or in an online meeting) concerns, queries, or identified issues with the Assessment Officer and fellow reviewers by the agreed deadline. These discussions must be documented and form the basis of any items brought to the Board's attention.
Pre-Board Distribution: The Clerk must issue the Board of Examiners data pack to all attendees at least two working days before the scheduled meeting. This pack must include:
- Board dataset (such as a marks spreadsheet, reports, MyGrades link, or equivalent)
- Clerk data integrity statement confirming completed checks
- Assessment Officer(s) statement confirming the processes and scrutiny processes performed
- Scrutiny log containing reviewer names, exceptions list, and corrections made
The final three statements may be issued as a joint statement from the Clerk and AO(s). All Board attendees must undertake their own final review of the materials before the meeting.
At the Board of Examiners: The Assessment Officer(s) should present a report on the pre-scrutiny process, outlining checks undertaken and highlighting any issues identified during review that require collective consideration or any patterns that warrant discussion. Reviewers may at this point add additional comments for the Board.
Whilst efficiency is important, and appropriately scrutinised uncomplicated cases need not be discussed individually, Boards should collectively verify general processes and outcomes. This verification serves multiple purposes: it ensures all attendees understand the assessment framework and its application; it provides training for newer colleagues; it allows for identification of any systemic issues not apparent during individual scrutiny; and it establishes collective responsibility for the outcomes being certified.
Best practice could therefore be for the Board to conduct some limited sample spot-checks during the meeting itself. This typically involves the Chair or Assessment Officer selecting one or two uncomplicated cases and walking through the calculation from component marks to final outcome. The Board should verify that the grade calculation is correct, that any relevant regulations (such as rounding rules or progression thresholds) have been properly applied, and that the outcome matches expectations. This process need not be lengthy – often two or three minutes per case –but it allows attendees to see the mechanics of the system in operation and to raise questions about standard procedures.
Attendees must then be given the opportunity for procedural clarifications during this process. These clarifications might concern interpretation of regulations, application of marking schemes, or handling of administrative grades. Creating space for such questions serves both a training function and a quality assurance function, as it may surface misunderstandings or inconsistencies that require resolution. The Chair should actively invite questions rather than assuming silence indicates comprehension.
Similarly, the Board should review complex situations involving Extenuating Circumstances, such as cases of incomplete assessment with progression implications, and any other flagged matters. These reviews serve to standardise decision-making across similar cases and ensure consistency in the application of regulations. For Boards which also address progression, the review of complex cases may include those students who are at the borderline of progression requirements or facing discontinuation, and the Board should satisfy itself that all relevant factors have been considered and that the student has been treated in accordance with published regulations.
The validation process ends with the Board collectively confirming its certification of the results. This is typically carried out by the Chair explicitly asking whether any attendee has concerns or objections about the process or about any cases, allowing a pause for response, and then formally requesting the Board certifies the results as presented (subject to any exceptions such as cases agreed to be deferred for further analysis). This formal confirmation establishes the Board's collective responsibility for the outcomes and should be clearly recorded in the minutes.
A key part of many Boards also involves hearing external examiner feedback on the programme, while some areas separate this into a separate meeting dedicated to feedback discussion and review. Both models are appropriate.
Post-Board: Following the Board, the Clerk must undertake or oversee verification checks to confirm accurate transfer of results from Board materials to MyCampus. Minutes must be prepared using the approved Academic Policy & Governance (APG) headings (a template is provided) alongside the completed checklist from Appendix 4, and sent with the dataset to APG within five working days, following sign-off by both Chair and Assessment Officer(s).
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