Thank You Very Much for Your Detailed External Examiner S Report, Which Has Been Reviewed

Dear Julie

Thank you very much for your detailed External Examiner’s report, which has been reviewed by the Education Leads, Programme Team and our Academic Board.

It was pleasing to read that the structure of our examination day does allow for the interaction and academic debate and we also value the opportunity to discuss our processes and student’s work on the day.

It was reassuring to read your positive comments and commendation relating to themodule materials and student support provided by our Educational Leads. It is extremely important to us that they are of a high and consistent standard.

All members of the team have worked hard on improving the consistency of our assignment design and module structure so thank you for your recognition of this. The issue you raised relating to the number of learning outcomes each module has, as you quite rightly acknowledge, relates to the standardisation of our modules in line with the Open University standards. The Educational Leads however are consistently reviewing their outcomes to ensure they are clinically significant and to reduce any overlaps.

In terms of our assessment variety, thank you for your positive acknowledgment of this and yes I agree that case studies could lend themselves to a more descriptive level of academic writing. This is always addressed by the Educational Leads when reviewing students’ draft work.

Your report this year has identifiedthe need to embrace our IT support platforms in relation to study materials, we are hopeful that our new virtual learning environment, ILearn, will help to open up new options for consideration.

I would like to take this opportunity to say once again thank you for your input and as the new in post Programme Lead I look forward to continuing to work with you during your tenure as our External Examiner.

Yours sincerely

Amanda Andrews

Long Term Conditions Programme Lead