Subject to procedures and regulations laid down by the Academic Council and Senate, University assessments are conducted under the supervision and control of Boards of Examiners.

Boards of Examiners should be chaired by the Head of School or the Director of Education/Graduate Studies, or exceptionally a senior academic member of staff who has undertaken the appropriate training.

The Head of School shall appoint a Secretary from the School.

A quorum of one third of the membership of the Board is required

The University operates two tiers of Board of Examiners: Subject Boards and Programme Boards.

Where appropriate, the Subject and Programme Boards may be combined into one single Board meeting.

A pre-board meeting may be held if required. In a pre-board meeting, the Chair and Secretary of the Board of Examiners meet informally to review marks in advance of a formal board meeting. The pre-board meeting offers an opportunity to determine if there are particular issues which the Board may need to prioritise. A pre-board meeting has no authority to confirm marks or to make decisions on student progress.

A Board of Examiners Checklist (PDF document) is available to support Schools to manage Boards of Examiner meetings.  A staff login is required to access the checklist.

Chair of the Board of Examiners

The Chair of the Board of Examiners shall be responsible to the Academic Council for ensuring that the approved procedures and regulations are followed by the Board and that the correct module marks, programme marks, degree classifications and award outcomes are published by the School. It is also the responsibility of the Chair of the Board of Examiners to ensure that the views of external examiners are presented to the Board, where they are not present. 

If the opinion of a Board is equally divided, the Chair of the Board shall have the final casting vote (in addition to the Chair’s original vote as a member of the Board). In all other cases, it will be the majority decision of the members present of the Board of Examiners meeting that will be upheld.

Secretary of the Board of Examiners

The Secretary of the Board shall be responsible for keeping a record of all decisions and the reasoning behind them, and for ensuring that the minutes are retained in line with the School’s records management policy.

Internal examiners are drawn from the academic staff teaching the subject. Internal examiners shall be appointed by the School on behalf of the Academic Council.

External Examiners are nominated by the School and appointed in line with the relevant academic governance process on behalf of the Academic Council. Information on the appointment of external examiners can be found in the External Examiners section of the Code of Practice on Examinations and Assessment.

*For external examiners involved in the pilot implementation of risk-based external examining at Queen’s in 2023-24 (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nursing and Midwifery and Social Sciences, Education and Social Work), the Standard Operating Procedures  should be consulted for information on the appointment of external examiners.

Each School should convene at least one School Exceptional Circumstances Committee prior to the Subject Board of Examiners to consider evidence of exceptional circumstances and to make recommendations to the appropriate Board of Examiners. For further details, see the Exceptional Circumstances section of the Code of Practice on Examinations and Assessment.

The Head of School shall be responsible for ensuring that a Subject Board of Examiners is established for each subject taught by the School or in conjunction with a collaborative partner. The members shall be drawn from the academic staff teaching the subject.

The Subject Board(s) shall agree marks for all modules in that subject and award academic credit where modules have been passed. Boards shall include within their membership the external examiner(s) appointed by the Education Committee (Quality and Standards) on behalf of the Academic Council for that subject.

Subject Boards must take into consideration any recommendations made by the School Exceptional Circumstances Committee, to take decisions on further assessment opportunities but must not discuss the exceptional circumstances of individual students.

Subject Boards are responsible only for marks or grades in the modules in a given subject in a given semester or year (as appropriate). A Subject Board does not review a student’s marks or grades in other subjects or in other semesters/years.  Subject Boards cannot change marks which have been approved by a previous Subject Board.

The attendance of the Subject External Examiner(s) at the Subject Board of Examiners meeting is encouraged but not required. In instances where the relevant External Examiner does not attend, the School must ensure that the external examiner has contributed fully to the moderation process, has provided comments to the Board, and has reviewed the final list of marks. In the exceptional circumstances where an external examiner disagrees with the final list of marks, this should be recorded by the Secretary to the Board. The Board should take the opinion of the external examiner very seriously. However, the final decision on marks must be a majority decision of the Board of Examiners.