Board of Examiners

A Board of Examiners is a body with membership approved by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

The role of the Board of Examiners it is to take an overview of each student’s academic performance on a relevant course or programme based primarily on assessment results, and to make a final academic judgement on the appropriate outcome.

There are generally two Board of Examiners meetings during the academic year – an Interim Board and a Final Board.

Course marks from semester 1 and 2 will be ratified at the Interim Board, with the dissertation mark ratified at the Final Board. The purpose of the Final Board is also to assess which final awards students will be granted for their degree programme of study. All marks and grades are provisional until their ratification during these Boards.

For further information on the policies and principles of the Board of Examiners, please see the following link – www.ed.ac.uk/academic-services/staff/assessment/boards-examiners .

The Board of Examiners includes an External Examiner, whose role is to assure standards of assessment and to provide a further source of advice on the Programme. Students are sometimes invited to an informal meeting with the External Examiner in May/June.

The External Examiner system forms a key part of the University’s quality assurance and enhancement mechanisms. External Examiners help to ensure that degrees awarded by the University are comparable in standard to those awarded at other Universities, although their content may differ. They also ensure that the assessment system is operated equitably and fairly in respect of the treatment and classification of students and that the University’s regulations are consistently applied.

Further guidance on the role of the external examiner and associated regulations can be found here:

www.ed.ac.uk/academic-services/quality-unit/quality-assurance/external-examining