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I have a related observation from the perspective of graduate programs in the US. One surprising, and sensible thing, that I noticed in working in the UK was t

I have a related observation from the perspective of graduate programs in the US. One surprising, and sensible thing, that I noticed in working in the UK was that PhD defenses of students were conducted by professors from other universities. In that sense, there was an external standard that prevented simply passing students for "sentimental" reasons or lowering the bar unilaterally by the student's own department. And I certainly knew of cases in the US in my department where people got passed much more leniently, and it's hard for your own professor to tell you that you're not fit for a PhD. (ironically (?) when it does happen, it seems the bad news comes at the last step, rather than along the way, much to the publicized and frustrating feedback about grad programs that appears in discussion often). Of course in the US there is no way that you could coordinate, or have universities be incentivized, to have external examiners evaluate and pass/fail their students. It probably all relates (in some tangential way) to the waning desire to engage in standards-setting for admission or graduation.

pmyteh 4y ago
UK universities also have 'external examiners', who are academics from the same subject area in other universities. They're tasked with providing moderation feedback to try to keep standards for each (taught) degree classification roughly comparable between institutions. (They also provide input into course design, warn university highers-up if the programme is going off the rails, and other things). It's far from perfect, and standards do vary from course to course and institution to institution, but it's better than nothing. And not all in one direction, either: after the first year of the MSc programme I (later) took, the external examiners' report said that our department had marked very harshly, and several excellent students deserving of distinctions (and who would have got them in other universities) had been denied. The recommendation was to actually award the highest marks in the future. I'm directing my own new MA programme next year, and I'm curious to see what feedback I get. Marking, where there's no established disciplinary body of knowledge to get through and assess, is decidedly non-trivial to get right.

pmyteh 4y ago

UK universities also have 'external examiners', who are academics from the same subject area in other universities. They're tasked with providing moderation feedback to try to keep standards for each (taught) degree classification roughly comparable between institutions. (They also provide input into course design, warn university highers-up if the programme is going off the rails, and other things). It's far from perfect, and standards do vary from course to course and institution to institution, but it's better than nothing. And not all in one direction, either: after the first year of the MSc programme I (later) took, the external examiners' report said that our department had marked very harshly, and several excellent students deserving of distinctions (and who would have got them in other universities) had been denied. The recommendation was to actually award the highest marks in the future. I'm directing my own new MA programme next year, and I'm curious to see what feedback I get. Marking, where there's no established disciplinary body of knowledge to get through and assess, is decidedly non-trivial to get right.