Online Examiners Meeting Worked Well

Greetings from the project examiners meeting of the Computer School at the Australian National University in Canberra. Due to COVID-19 this is being conducted online, via video conference. The format is much the same as a face to face examiners meeting. The meeting works its way through a spreadsheet (displayed on screen), where each line shows the proposed grades for a student from reviewers, a proposed final grade and color code to indicate if the academic in charge thinks there is consensus. Most are coded green, indicating there is a consensus and these are generally accepted with little discussion. Those coded amber need more discussion, while the red ones have vigorous debate.

In past years the discussion has got quite heated for a few projects, but not today. There were quite a few comments about the difficulty students had due to COVID-19, with some overseas and unable to meet in person with their supervisor. This can also be difficult where students are working on a project with human subjects, but unable to see them in person. However, I was impressed how, despite the difficulties, staff and students were still able to undertake valuable work.

An observer might think there is not much to such a meeting. But behind this are years of work establishing standards. With that all done, the final decisions can be made smoothly.

Examiner's meetings for Master Subthesis

Greetings from the Research School of Computer Science at the Australian National University in Canberra, where I am taking part in an examiner's meeting for the Master of Computing (Honours) sub-thesis. This is my first masters meeting, although I have taken part in the coursework examiners meeting previously. The students do some coursework, a presentation and a report of about 25,000 words. Two examiners, who did not supervise the students, each assess the thesis document separately, then try to come to a consensus. 

This can be a difficult process as the examiners come from different part of the computing discipline (some are academics and other from industry). After the two examiners have separately reported their proposed mark with a few paragraphs of comments, the academic in charge looks to see if there is consensus and where there is not, encourages the two to discuss their differences. There is then a meeting of the examiners to provide their input. 

Unlike the course-work process there are fewer statistics to help guide the process. The examiners need to avoid the temptation to base their mark on what the students got for their course-work, and just base it on the written thesis. The surprising part of this process is that even where there were divergent views at the start, a consensus between the examiners is usually achieved. 

One part of the process which works remarkably well is that all examiners are treated based on their discipline knowledge, regardless of position in the university hierarchy. As an adjunct lecturer, I can happily disagree with the Dean, provided I can back up my position.

Role of Examiners Meetings

Recently I was asked about the assessment process by a lecturer who was uncomfortable with a rigid mechanical marking process, where students they though should pass had been failed for not getting the required 50% So I described the process I was used to taking part in at the end of each semester: the "examiners meeting", which I assumed every university used. Each examiner has to justify the grades of all their students to their peers. Usually the marks of the top students and those failing are looked at most closely. It is common for one of the meeting to ask to see the results for other courses for a student, if they think that student should not be failed on one course. Examiners are frequently sent off to review marks where they appear to be inconsistent.