Assessment from A-Z

If you are to act as an external examiner in an exam period, you will be contacted by the chairman of the external examiners or the exam administration at the university. Most exams at the Faculty of Humanities – written, oral and practical exams – are held and assessed in Digital Exam.

If you are to assess exams in Digital Exam, you will receive an auto-generated email from the system informing you that you have been assigned as an external examiner in connection with one or more exams in Digital Exam. When you log on to the system, you will find an overview of the exams to which you have been assigned. Information is available for the individual exams about when to start and complete the assessment. See information on login and a video guide on Digital Exam.

If you are to assess an exam which is not held in Digital Exam, you will receive information from the department's exam administration about where and when the examination is held.

In the relevant curriculum you can read about the form of examination and the exam provisions for the exams to which you have been assigned as an external examiner. Some departments upload the applicable curriculum in Digital Exam under the relevant exam.

If the curriculum does not contain any information about the exam you are to assess, and if the university has not provided you with access to other material regarding the exam provisions, please contact the exam administration at the department concerned.

Under 'Assessment of master's theses', you can read more about storage of master's theses and standard procedures for the assessment of master's theses. Obligation to make notes in connection with assessments According to the Examination Order, external examiners must make notes in connection with the assessment and keep these for at least one year or until any appeal procedure has been completed, see section 23 of the Examination Order..

According to the Examination Order, external examiners must make notes in connection with the assessment and keep these for at least one year or until any appeal procedure has been completed, see section 23 of the Examination Order. However, you are obliged to destroy other personally identifiable information (such as exam lists) once the exam is over.

In practice, the external examiner's chairmanship decides the allocation of assignments for external grading. Prior to allocation, the external examiners' chairmanship consults the institution (typically the head of studies), e.g. with regard to special conditions, the external examiner's expertise, see section 52(1) of the Examination Order, or circumstances which reasonably raise doubt about the external examiner's impartiality.

When appointing external examiners, the external examiners' chairmanship both can and should show great responsiveness to the institution's views, but cannot assign (delegate) the task of appointing external examiners to the institution (head of studies).

External examiners are appointed immediately after the student has submitted the thesis subject, one month prior to the deadline for submission of the master's thesis. External examiners should preferably be appointed before the deadline for submission to ensure the external examiner can meet the six-week assessment deadline (excluding July). The six weeks are calculated from the day when the thesis is submitted until the date on which the assessment is sent to the department or has been entered in Digital Exam.

The chairman of the external examiners must inform the department's thesis administration about which member of the external examiners' chairmanship performs the function of appointing an external examiner if the chairman of the external examiners is on holiday, absent, on sick leave, etc. The department administration must inform the external examiner's chairmanship about who performs the function of head of studies if the head of studies is absent.

The supervisor and external examiner receive an auto-generated message from Digital Exam stating that they have been assigned as assessors in the thesis exam in question. The external examiner and the examiner (supervisor) can see the deadlines for submission and assessment in Digital Exam. At some departments, the external examiner and supervisor are notified that they can initiate the assessment when the master's thesis has been submitted in Digital Exam.

See information on login and a video guide on assessment in Digital Exam.

External examiners who, during the assessment of the master's thesis, make notes and underline text in the thesis copy have an obligation to keep the copy for a year, as such additions are regarded as notes, and are thus subject to the provision set out in section 23 of the Examination Order. After one year and in cases where notes have not been made in the master's thesis, the external examiner is obliged to destroy the master's thesis immediately after completion of the assessment and expiration of the appeal deadline. Naturally, the external examiner is not entitled to use the master's thesis without the author's consent.