General
The purpose of the examiner guide is to ensure that all parties involved – the candidate, course teacher and examiner – have a common understanding of the current examination scheme and assessment criteria for assigning marks.
In the UV-Faculty's doctoral programme, the student’s attendance and submission of a written assignment (usually paper) are the most common requirements, with pass/fail as the grading standard. This is also the basis on which the faculty will operate with a common standard for the examiner guide.
Content of the examiner guide:
- learning objectives of the course
- description of the assessment scheme in the course
- formal requirements of the course (attendance, length and format of the paper)
- assessment criteria to be followed by examiners in the assessment of the exam answers. Assessment criteria can be derived from the course's learning objectives and thereby clarify that there is a correlation between what one expects candidates to learn and what they are being evaluated on. The formulation of criteria may vary depending on the course content and learning objectives with regard to the balance between generic and specific criteria. As a general rule, assessment criteria should not be too detailed and specific, but at the same time not so generic that they do not point to observable qualities of the work. Examples of criteria that can be about the work:
- discusses ethical questions with relevance to the project
- has a well-grounded research question
- a strong degree of coherence between issue and method
- discusses results based on relevant theory
- accounts for various research traditions in the field in an adequate manner
If there is a further description of the design of the essay/paper, it may reflect the key
assessment criteria and thereby cover this point.
- course description stating the course's learning outcomes - it suffices to refer to them.
- Reading list - it suffices to refer to it.
- Course’s position in the programme
Accessibility of the guide
As a rule, the examiner guide should be available to PhD candidates at the start of the course.
Institutionalization
In courses where there are several examiners, the course coordinator convenes a meeting of the examiners, where the examiners jointly — and based on the examiner guide — assess current aspects of examining/marking for the various tasks. The purpose is to harmonise and find a common basis and level for assigning marks. The meeting can provide the basis for the individual examiner to adjust their marking of individual answers.