Undergraduate Teaching 2024-25

Guidelines for Examiners and Assessors: Part IIB supplement

Guidelines for Examiners and Assessors: Part IIB supplement

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Part IIB supplement

Sections in this supplement

Key responsibilities for each role are outlined below. The Chair and the Chair’s Secretary will issue more detailed instructions by email, which will include specific deadlines.

Responsibilities of Principal Assessors

Exam Modules

  1. Send details of any changes to the form & conduct of the exam (compared to the previous year’s paper) to the Chair’s Secretary for approval by the Faculty Board.
  2. Inform the Chair & Teaching Office of any staff who will be essential to setting/marking the examination scripts and/or coursework if they are not already on the list of Assessors. NB. While two assessors are essential for quality assurance, more may be detrimental to coherence.
  3. Inform students during the lectures which, if any, Part II data sheets will be available during the examination. NB. All Part I Engineering Tripos data books will be available during the examinations.
  4. [For open note exams only] remind candidates before the exam that they may bring to the examination only:
    1. lecture notes that were handed out by the lecturers for that particular module;
    2. any hand-written notes that the candidate has made personally;
    3. or exceptionally, other specific notes authorised in writing by the Principal Assessor.
  5. Follow the guidelines on setting exam papers in the notes for Part II examiners and using the Department’s exam paper templates & formatting instructions (including proper use of version numbers).
    NB. The style of IIB papers should be appropriate for the final examination of the four-year course. A well-posed question should have a straightforward knowledge-based part that most candidates will be able to answer and should contain an application/design component where possible with the level appropriate for the MEng degree.
  6. Provide copies of the paper in the final format (plus cribs and Part II data sheets if relevant) to the Group Examiner and the Chair’s Secretary.
  7. Take the External Examiner’s and/or Group Examiner’s comments into account when producing the final version of the paper.
  8. Read the exam papers out loud to the Group so that the quality, formatting and clarity of the questions can be scrutinized. Amend the papers as necessary afterwards.
  9. Attend the examination for the module. If this is not possible arrange for a Deputy to attend who can answer candidates’ queries (generally the Second Assessor). Notify the Chair and the Teaching & Examinations Coordinator in advance of any such arrangements.
  10. Mark the examination scripts in line with the Department’s script-marking guidelines.
  11. Follow the guidelines on marking coursework, penalising students for lateness, handing back work, etc as set out in the IIB module leaders’ notes.
  12. Assemble the marks for the module in line with the Chair’s guidance on the required general distribution of marks, the general scaling procedure to be following to achieve it, and the detailed scaling guidelines for each module.
  13. Ensure that the marking scheme is clear, consistent and unambiguous so that the marks can be readily checked. NB. Scripts should be placed in the script envelope in numerical order, together with a copy of the examination paper and crib. All scripts should be returned for checking.
  14. Create a report on the examination/coursework and deliver this, plus the markbook, scripts and any changes to the cribs (if applicable) to the Chair’s Secretary.
  15. Respond promptly to queries from the script-checkers. NB. Any amendments to markbooks must be initialed and dated by both the script-checker and the Principal Assessor.
  16. Assessors who are not Group Examiners, do not attend the final Examiners’ meeting.

Coursework Only Modules

1.      Coursework exercises should be set to comply with the following:

i. The total workload for the module per student should be approximately eighty hours;

ii. Exercises should be sufficiently differentiated from previous years to reduce the possibility of plagiarism;

iii. Candidates should be able to get limited advantage from the use of AI tools;

iv. Exercises should be set in a style and level of difficulty that will produce an approximate distribution of raw marks for a typical cohort of Part IIB students consistent with current Faculty Board guidelines, namely in the following ranges: around 45% of candidates achieve marks between 60% and 69%; around 40% of candidates achieve marks of 70% or more; around 15% of candidates achieve marks below 60%. The marks awarded should be consistent with the Faculty Board's assessment criteria in Marking & classing criteria.

v. Exercises should be set in draft form by Monday of week two and shared with the Second Assessor and Group Examiner for checking against the above criteria i-iv. Checking process and signing of check-sheet should be completed by the Division of Term.

  1. Upload all coursework exercises to SharePoint by Monday of week 2 LT (in final form for MT modules and draft form for LT modules) for inspection by External Examiners.
  2. Ensure that marking of all Coursework submissions complies with the guidelines and deadlines set out in the IIB module leaders’ notes. 

4.      Finalise the marks for the module in line with the Chair’s guidance on the required general distribution of marks and the general scaling procedure to be following to achieve it.

Upload the mark books and assessor’s report to SharePoint by Friday of Week 5 LT (for MT Modules) and Friday of Week 5 ET (for LT Modules).      

Responsibilities of Second Assessors

Exam Modules

Second Assessors should:

  1. Have the knowledge and expertise to teach and assess the module if necessary. For very specialised modules Subject Groups might need to appoint Second Assessors from elsewhere in the University.
  2. Read examination questions and solutions as agreed with the Principal Assessor, to ensure as far as possible that the questions are conceptually correct, properly posed, appropriate for the syllabus and of an acceptable length and difficulty.
  3. Undertake all the coursework exercises for ‘their’ module and confirm in writing to the Chair of Examiners that the length/workload and content are appropriate.
  4. Be prepared to deputise for the Principal Assessor during the exam if s/he is unavoidably absent.
  5. Mark examination scripts and coursework as agreed with the Principal Assessor, fully comply with the Department’s script-marking guidelines and hand the marks and examination scripts to the Principal Assessor by the required date.

In addition, Second Assessors of imported “4I” modules should:

  1. Liaise with the course leader, who is often in another department, to ensure that the information on the CUED website about the module is correct well before the module starts, to allow students to make informed choices.
  2. After the module has been marked ensure that the CUED electronic mark-book is correctly completed and the Assessor’s Report is submitted to the Chair’s Secretary by the specified deadline.

Coursework Only Modules

Second Assessors should:

  1. Have the knowledge and expertise to teach and assess the module if necessary. For very specialised modules Subject Groups might need to appoint Second Assessors from elsewhere in the University.
  2. Scrutinise the coursework exercises for the module and confirm by signing the check-sheet that they satisfy the criteria i-iv above.
  3. Mark the coursework exercises as agreed with the Principal Assessor within the guidelines and deadlines set out in IIB module leaders’ notes.

In addition, Second Assessors of imported “4I” modules should:

  1. Liaise with the course leader, who is often in another department, to ensure that the information on the CUED website about the module is correct well before the module starts, to allow students to make informed choices.
  2. After the module has been marked ensure that the CUED electronic mark-book is correctly completed and the Assessor’s Report is submitted to the Chair’s Secretary by the specified deadline.

Responsibilities of Group Examiners

Group Examiners (Exam Modules)

  1. Collect all papers, cribs and Part II data sheets for their Group (and chase absent papers) and deliver them to the Chair’s Secretary.
  2. Check that exam papers:
    1. follow the format of the previous year’s paper, unless previously approved by the Faculty Board.
    2. conform to the Department’s formatting guidelines, including proper use of version numbers;
    3. are accompanied by suitably helpful cribs and any required Part II data sheets. NB. indicative percentage marks approximating to the relative weighting of different sections of a question should be shown on the exam paper and the crib. Even with essay questions the crib should show the key credit-earning points.
  3. Set up reading meetings at which Principal Assessors read their paper out loud to the Group so that the quality, formatting and clarity of the questions can be scrutinized and to ensure the External Examiner’s comments have been considered.

Group Examiners (Coursework Only Modules)

1. Scrutinise the coursework exercises for the module and confirm by signing the check-sheet that they satisfy the criteria i-iv above.

Group Examiners (Projects)

  1. Ensure to the best of their ability that all projects undertaken by students within their Group have a specification which is potentially capable of providing appropriate work for the MEng degree.
    NB. Such work should have elements of study, design and implementation and should contain practical and theoretical or software elements. The scale of the work must be such that the students of MEng calibre are able to complete all the elements within the allocated time.
  2. Monitor the grades of the projects within their Group and satisfy themselves that, to the best of their judgment, there are comparable grades for comparable standards of achievement.
  3. Ensure that at each stage of assessment the Supervisor's and Assessor's guideline marks are supported by appropriate comments on the mark forms.
  4. Moderate the grades awarded by the Supervisor and Assessor at the end of the assessment, according to the procedure described on the moderation form.
  5. Follow the more detailed guidelines which are issued by the Project Coordinator, Teaching Office and Project Group Administrators. Also see the notes for IIB project supervisors.

Attendance at Examiners’ Meetings

  1. All Group Examiners must attend the Examiners’ meetings (an initial meeting in Michaelmas Term, a pre-meeting of CUED Examiners prior to the Final Meeting and a Final Meeting with External Examiners present). The final meeting can only be missed if permission from the Vice Chancellor has been obtained in advance.

Project assessment guidelines

  1. For a breakdown of credit between the various assessed components, see the project, coursework & examination credit notice for Part IIB.
  2. Marks for Progress and Industry are awarded by the Project Supervisor.
  3. All other elements of the project are graded independently by two markers. The first marker is the Supervisor. The second marker (Assessor) is appointed by the Group Coordinator, who is also the Group Examiner (Projects). Normally the same Assessor is appointed for the Michaelmas and Easter presentations and also for all aspects of the project assessment. At the end of the year, each marker reviews the guideline marks they have given on all components and makes a recommendation for an overall grade: I/II.1/II.2/III.
  4. It is the responsibility of the Coordinator to arrive at a single moderated grade for each student. If the two markers do not agree in their recommendations a moderation procedure is followed.
  5. No scaling of project marks is carried out.

Links to additional information

Last updated on 17/10/2024 14:45