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Guidance for External Examiners on completing their annual report. Please refer to FAQs on this page where we hope you find the answer to queries relating to the External Examiners annual report.
- Q. I am having trouble logging into AssessmentUCL/Moodle, please help.
A. This is something that your Board Administrator will be able to help with. Please contact them directly.
- Q. What will the Portico report look like?
A. Please see below for a template of the report.
- Q. How and when do I access the report?
A. We will send you an email with a link to directly access the report on Portico. This is a single-sign on link so you do not need to enter any log-in details. This email will be sent around the time of your main BoE meeting.
- Q. I have received the single-sign on link but when I click on it I get redirected and am asked for my Portico log-in details. What should I do?
A. We’re sorry about this, occasionally there are issues with accessing the single-sign on link. You could try again using either Firefox or Chrome as these are the supported browsers. If this still does not work, we will need to re-generate your link as an attachment and email this to you. Please email us and we will do this: examiners@ucl.ac.uk
- Q. My Board has already met, but I’ve not yet received my Portico report link. How do I get this?
A. Thank you for letting us know. We depend on Board Administrators providing the BoE dates and linking modules to EEs (where relevant) in order for us to send out these report requests. It may be that we have not yet received these details– if possible, please copy in the Board Administrator to your email to us on this, or else we will chase up with the Board team and get back to you as soon as possible.
- Q. I am on two Boards. Will I receive two report requests?
A. Yes. For each Board that you are attached to you will be sent a report request link, around the week that the Board is due to meet. Please provide a report tailored to each Board, rather than writing one response that you use for each report
- Q. How long do I have to complete the report?
A. Please complete it within one month of the BoE meeting/or of receipt of the link to the report, whichever is soonest. You can save the report and return to it later to complete, before submitting.
- Q. Can I upload a word document instead of completing the free-text sections?
A. No, there is no upload feature. Please note that the Portico pages can time out if there is limited activity, so we advise you to draft your comments in a word document first and then copy these into the free-text sections in Section 3 to avoid losing any entries.
- Q. I see that there are a number of modules that are linked to me, but I am not sure if they are all supposed to be mine. Can you help?
A. These are linked by the Board administrator, and you may notice that you have multiple modules/module occurrences, some of which may not be what you expect if your module administrator has not mentioned this before. If you have queries about the modules linked to you, you can raise this in your report and it will be flagged for us to investigate; you will not be able to submit your Portico report until this is resolved.
- Q. There is a question about attending the Board. I attended virtually, do I still select Yes?
A. Yes please, both in-person and virtual attendance should be noted as Yes.
- Q. How much detail do you want me to provide in the Portico report?
A. Please provide as much detail as is necessary for us to be able to follow up any issues that you raise. We are particularly concerned with any risks to academic standards on the modules and or programmes. Please ensure you record your recommendations in the relevant sections (section 3 has space for three levels of Recommendations: Essential, Advisable, and Desirable), and note that there is also space for noting Good Practice and Further General Comments. We do have a 3000 character limit in each of the free-text sections, so please be aware of this. Also please that you maintain confidentiality and do not disclose any identifying information in your comments. If we do find anything that breaches this we have to redact it.
- Q. Who gets to see the report?
A. When the report is submitted it is viewed by the Board Chair, Deputy Chair, and Board Administrators, Faculty Lead, as well as the External Examining team of Academic Services. Any comments/recommendations that require a response from a central team (for example, the examination team, or the regulations team) are passed to the relevant team. Where any comments or recommendations suggest a risk to standards, these and the departmental response that relates to them, are provided to the Vice-Provost (Education and Student Experience) or nominee.
Once the departmental response is provided and the report closed it is made available to students (and where appropriate, partner institutions), and should also be provided to the entire BoE members. You will receive an email when the report is closed, that contains your report, the departmental response, and any central responses (where required).