Met with External Examiners

I met with external examiners earlier in the week. I was very impressed with how thorough they were, despite have lots to get though and things being a bit disorganized. Over the years I have become accustomed to external examiners being interested only in my passing as many students as possible. They have usually only been interested in students' marks and have rarely taken an interest in their actual work. I have for a number of years now considered external examiners to be an important part of the conspiracy of mediocrity that pervades higher education in Ireland.

This year the externs wanted access to all of the students' work, and if that wasn't practical, at least, representative samples. I was quite embarrassed because I wasn't prepared for this. I was able to put my hand on anything the externs wanted to see, but I should really have at it available for them to browse at their leisure. As usual they were interested in students that were hovering around the threshold of passing or not. In the past this was invariably because they felt that anyone within an ass's roar of 35% should be looked at again, and I would find myself having to defend each fail mark. I have to confess that slowly over time I became accustomed to just dragging those extremely weak student across the finish line in order to save myself the hassle.

This year it was clear that I had set the standard too low. I was attempting to pass students that I knew didn't really deserve it. The good thing is, that I was caught red handed. This was embarrassing, but the best outcome none the less. It's good to know that in the future when I try to uphold the minimum standard there will be some stake holders there to support my efforts, rather than undermine them. Overall this has been an annus horribilis for standards and academic integrity at CIT. For the first time in months I am guardedly optimistic.

Next year I think I will give the external examiners access to student work as the semester goes along. This will save time, but it might also allow me to get some useful feedback more quickly.