Standing down as EE after one year - anyone done it?

[purplepandas]

I am an EE at a new (to me) uni after being asked by a prof I know there due to shared expertise. I am feeling bad but I really want to step down. I have been an EE before and also course director my end so I have lots of experience of working with EEs.

I want to stand down as it is a nightmare. Things appearing at the last minute repeatedly and a huge lack of clarity. I am expected to go and locate all of the moderated scripts from systems I am not sure about (we just put them in a folder or on the VLE for the EE to make their lives easier). I am not precious, I just do not have time. They also cannot get my name right which is bugging me more than it should (like my first name).

How bad would this be to stand down after the first exam board? I do feel bad but I do not need this extra stress (things are very tricky with one of my DC atm plus my own job). I would be okay if they actually made the job easier as we do.

Can you not put all this in your EE report? It's surely commonly accepted practice to have ALL scripts in one place and easily accessible for the EE. I'd be tempted to report it and if they are unlikely to deal with it just leave.

Yes I'd feed it back both formally and informally and then see how next year goes.

I'm secretary to our own board as well as EE elsewhere and so involved on both sides. It's really difficult to get everything together if the academics are uncooperative or the support staff below par (ours are fab thankfully), but "the external examiner said..." is a great way to underline a request and they'd probably be delighted if you raised it.

Thanks @CelesteCunningham and @Acinonyx2 , really helpful. I am being asked to search through VLE lists for particular assignments and I don't think that is okay. Makes me sound lazy, I am not! I can feedback and see what they say.

They probably haven't realised how much faff it is when you're not familiar with the modules, VLE set up etc.

I wondered that but there are two other EEs (not new) so you would think someone else would find it tricky too. I thought maybe just me but I honestly don't think it is. We always try and make life as easy as possible for our EEs!

If they use the same VLE it's probably more intuitive for them.

What does it matter if you stand down? It won't be held against you in any way. I mean the institution may be disgruntled but so what. I honestly don't know how anyone as the capacity in their workload to be an EE, let alone if the uni makes it harder work than it should be.

Ah, it's a bit trickier as the invitee as a big wig in the field and I don't think I would be seen so favourably. I am going to see what happens and go from there. I will be making this clear in terms of needing to make things easier for EEs. I so wish I had said no. I only took it on because I thought it could help with promotion (which it will not!)

I could have written your first post about things being last minute, being given a vle link and needing to click a whole bunch of things before finding the work and feedback. Also unrealistic expectations like being sent details of work and where to find it 48 hours before the board meeting. Different modules have things set up differently too. It's got worse this year and I'm thinking of standing down rather than have another year of 'disappointed' emails because I'm not prepared to sit up all night to read scripts so I've read them before the board. It's my day job and family who suffer, not the uni I'm an external for. What it has done is make me very thankful that we do things differently at our place.
I don't think the uni you're an external for would bat an eyelid at your stepping down. Unfortunately! Maybe raise these issues in your report and hopefully things will change for the better next year.

Hadn't realised how fed up I was til I started writing!

I think that's your inner voice though. Typical high achieving female! ( Takes one to know one and doubt I'm as high achieving as you are). He can't do anything to you really. Just make something up. Pressures at home/illness... Or something. If he badmouths you, it won't make any difference and it's make him look bad. He probably won't bother though.

My EE left after a year because he decided to move abroad. It was inconvenient and I was disappointed but didn't hold it against him and he was a great external too so would never say otherwise.

Thanks @Mumteedum . To update, I did stand down but that was after chucking some last min work at me in Aug and then retracting. I was on leave and had been told I was done. Final straw and all that, it was so utterly disorganised. Feel bad but right decision. Not signing up for any more EE roles! And I let the big wig know, they didn't even reply!

Hope things improve for you @Yetanothernewname101

This sounds very familiar. I just left an EE role before the end of my term for very similar reasons. Sending things last minute; putting scripts in different folders so I was forever searching around for things; using one set of numbers for scripts that were different from the student numbers so it was incredibly hard to match scripts with marks etc.

And I'm on the EE JISC list and I think it's getting worse - universities are asking for people to be EE for loads of courses at once and not offering any more pay than they did for a single course.

And the worst of all are the constant requests for people to be on validations panels. Looking at the documents in advance and preparing; all day in the panel; then writing a report all for £150. Barely even minimum wage by the time you add it all up

I'm glad you've done it @purplepandas . Coincidentally, mine has quit before the end of their tenure so I've got to hunt for another. No idea why anyone wants to do it these days. I would say I try hard to communicate clearly and support my EEs but it's still a load of work and crap money.

I accepted an EE role and then 4 months later my university offered VS, and I retired. I’m going to do the full year and I think then step down. The workload is a bit insane for the tiny amount of money, all the meetings are now online, and, well, I’d rather spend the time doing other things now. I also did not appreciate having to chase my pay!

It's becoming more and more difficult to find people to do this work. Unsurprisingly. I suspect the whole system is going to have to be rethought, or at least the role much better incentivised. The fee is an absolute joke.

Yup. I just stepped down. My contact was actually very nice about it…he said, you just retired! You need a break!

It doesn’t count for anything to be an external anymore for UG or MA programmes, or even much for doctoral vivas.

I just externalled for a PhD viva (I think I’ve done this about 7 times). Whilst I was happy to do it as the candidate requested me due to common specialisms, it was about 12 hours on the train for the return trip. There were the hours reading the thesis, the reports etc, and the fee was £200. The hosting university to be fair did put me up in a basic hotel, and I was treated to a nice dinner and lunch, and the admin was very efficient. So, great to meet people, the internal examiner was a lovely person, and good to help a student, but £200? No wonder they have trouble sometimes finding someone.

I am still chasing payment/reimbursement for another one I did last month!

Yeah. I mean for those of us still working the £200 is a bonus for work we do in our normal work hours (ie we are also being paid by the university as normal). same as grant panels . If you’re retired it’s definitely not worth the effort

Sorry to hop on the thread with a slightly unrelated question but is it usual to get a pay slip for EE remuneration? I'm trying to get a pay slip for one of my EE roles and it's proving difficult. I've been paid but just need evidence of it and the tax and NI paid! It might sound ridiculous but this might be the issue that tips me over the edge with this role and leads to me giving it up. I've been gracious about various admin / organisation issues that have occurred but a pay slip seems such a basic (and legal) requirement I don't know why it's so problematic.

I used to quite like the social aspect of getting to know a different department and could overlook the crap fee. But now that exam boards are generally online, there's nothing that would persuade me to do it.

Yes, there is normally a payslip as far as I recall.

Yes, I didn’t think about it before in that way. Sometimes I get the impression some past colleagues think, ooh, OP is retired, she has all the time in the world to do this service stuff. They don’t think that it becomes almost entirely voluntary if you are unsalaried, and also if they would do it if they were retired. I tend to think the answer is generally ‘no’ for the latter. This is especially the case if there is little social aspect to it, and it is all online.

Re: payslip. I file self assessment, so give them an invoice and take care of it when doing my taxes. It depends if you meet the threshold for self assessment if it is worth doing this for you.

Update. One university paid me after my invoice was submitted straight away. The other after saying an invoice was fine (paperwork was done in June and agreed, viva at beginning of September), now wants right to work checks…for a £175 fee and my £40 rail ticket which I had to buy and get reimbursed for. So, submitted the documents to them, and now they say, well we missed the disbursement date, so you might get your money at the end of November. We hope.

Gentle reader, never again am I externalling for a PhD, especially when retired. I was a mug for doing it.

This has just reminded me of another bonkers aspect of PhD examiners' fees. At my university, the internal examiner receives a fee (though less than the external's) but it is only paid after the external examiner has submitted their
pay and expenses claim. So if they don't bother (which actually does sometimes happen) you don't get paid!