Faculty SAS Procedure for sending assessment materials to External Examiners Email Assessment materials should be sent to External Examiners only via email unless a specific request is made for additional hard copies. Materials should be emailed to all External Examiners regardless of whether they also want hard copies. When hard copies are requested these should be sent via secure, signed-for delivery such as the Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed service. External Examiners must be made aware of this policy in their welcome letter. See communication step 1. All email communication should be via a secure email account, e.g. sciengexams@mmu.ac.uk. Except for External Examiners, this account should be reserved for internal use and should not be advertised for student queries etc. Process and password protection A letter should be sent to all External Examiners containing a unique password assigned to them for accessing documents. The letter should be sent via secure, signed-for delivery such as the Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed service. See communication step 2. A month before the exam papers are due to be sent to the External Examiners a courtesy email should be sent to the External Examiners confirming the exam papers to be sent to them and the date on which they will be sent. This is the first contact the External Examiner has from the secure email account. See communication step 3. If an External Examiner forgets his/her password a new password letter should be sent using the process described above. As soon as exam papers requiring external moderation by an External Examiner are logged, actioned and checked the appropriate password should be added prior to it being emailed. Typically, each exam paper should also be accompanied by a separate model answer/solution document. Technical aspect The documents (typically Word documents) should be converted to PDF and password protected using PDFCreator. This software may need to be requested from the IT Helpline. A VBA script can be used to automatically batch convert and add the password to documents. This also creates a folder for the relevant External Examiner s files and avoids having to open each document and use the software options to manually enter a password, thus reducing the risk of copy and paste errors etc. Screengrab showing original word documents, the button that runs the VBA script and the password-protected PDFs created in their own specific External Examiner folder. 1
As soon as the password-protected files are created they should be attached to an email. This may be semi-automated to ensure that the correct files are instantly attached to the correct unitspecific email. See communication step 4. Feedback External Examiners can return question-sensitive feedback by using the comment feature within the PDF software the document can be saved and will remain password-protected. Non-sensitive feedback can be made within the body of an email. Communication steps On the following pages you will find the communication steps referred to above, namely: 1 - Appointment Letter 2 - Password Letter 3 - Overview email 4 - Individual unit emails 2
Communication step 1 Welcome Letter Following an External Examiner s formal appointment letter (sent by the Head of CASQE), the faculty Quality Enhancement Team writes a letter welcoming the External Examiner to the faculty. This letter should include the following paragraph: Examination Papers will be sent to you via email. All documents will be password protected. The (appropriate FSAS team) will write to you and provide you with a password. This password will remain the same throughout your tenure unless you request it to be changed. If you require hard copies of examination papers you must request these from (appropriate FSAS team). Please note, it is the policy of the (appropriate FSAS team) to send documents via email even if you have requested hard copies. If passwords have not previously been sent to current External Examiners the appropriate FSAS team should write to them separately explaining the new process and including the paragraph above. 3
Communication step 2 Password Letter External Examiner University Department City Postcode Dear xxxxxxxx I write to you in your capacity as an External Examiner for Manchester Metropolitan University. In future, the Examinations Team will primarily communicate via email (from the secure address: xxxxxx@mmu.ac.uk). As a security measure we will passwordprotect documents such as examination papers. Please find your unique password below: xxxxx127xx Please keep this password safe. When we send examination papers to you, please send your comments to the secure email address above. If you have previously arranged to send hard copies please use the Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed service (http://www.royalmail.com/personal/uk-delivery/specialdelivery?intcampaignid=clt_0613_lp_19) and return them to the address below: (appropriate FSAS team) Manchester Metropolitan University xxxxxx Building xxxxxx Street Manchester Postcode We can also be contacted by telephone (0161 247 xxxx). Yours sincerely 4
Communication step 3 Overview email Dear External Examiner, This is a courtesy email to let you know we are currently processing our Summer and Resit exam papers and will be sending them to you from 12th February. The password for each document will be the same as previously communicated. (Please let us know if you have forgotten your password). All documents will be sent via email as PDF files (unless agreed otherwise). We will only send emails from this secure email account (xxxxx@mmu.ac.uk ). Please send ALL comments and feedback to this email account. You can provide question-sensitive feedback using the comment feature in the PDF software and saving within the password-protected document. Non-sensitive feedback can be given in the body of an email. If possible, please return your comments/response to the papers within two weeks of receipt. <u>list of Exams We'll Be Sending :</u> <b>[exunitlist]</b> Note: this list is based on Summer papers, the set of Resits may vary (for example, if the Summer paper is the final opportunity for a repeating without attendance student on a unit that no longer runs). We will email to let you know when we have sent a complete set of papers. Kind Regards, 5
Communication step 4 Individual unit emails [Semester] Paper: [Type] [Unit Codes] : [Unit Title] Please find attached the above examination paper(s) for your moderation. Please respond to this email with any comments/suggestions for amendments you may have for this/these paper(s) as soon as possible, ideally within 2 weeks of receipt. If you have any problems accessing these files please let us know as soon as possible. The password for each document will be your unique password as previously communicated. Below are all the details we hold for this paper: Paper: [Unit Codes] : [Unit Title] Programme: [Programmes] Duration (hours): [Exam Duration] Kind Regards, 6