In carrying out their duties all External Examiners appointed by Kent will have access to student data and work. This data/work should be accessed, processed, and stored in line with the University of Kent’s obligations under the Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR. The University acts as a Data Controller and External Examiners are treated as Data Processors under GDPR.
Any data/work made available to External Examiners is for the sole purpose of carrying out their duties and should be treated as confidential. The data/work should not be used for any additional purposes nor disclosed to any unauthorised third parties either accidently, negligently, or intentionally.
External Examiners should ensure that any student data they have received, be it a document shared electronically, or a hard copy received by post, is held securely, and disposed of in a secure manner upon completion of their taught course duties or upon completion of the examination process for a research degree.
External Examiners should report any data breach to the University of Kent’s Assurance & Data Protection Office by email dataprotection@kent.ac.uk, following the University’s Data Breach Policy
In order to share data with External Examiners, Helpdesk recommends Moodle or uploading the document(s) to either a SharePoint site or OneDrive, then using the built-in collaboration functions to share the document(s) as necessary. This way, the file is always stored in a secure location. In the event the External Examiner downloads a local copy the aforementioned advice would apply.
In the coming weeks QACO will be updating the appointment letters, thesis submission letter, Codes of Practice (taught courses and research degrees), the External Examiners Taught Course Handbook and Instructions to Examiners of Research Degrees.