Journalism lecturer, and former Canberra Times editor, Crispin Hull was accused this week of telling tutor Lynne Minion in an email exchange to overlook the poor English of two exchange students from China in 2010 and pass their assignments.

In a statement yesterday, the university said it would appoint an independent, external officer to investigate the claims, but the issue in question related to just one component of an assignment for the subject the students were studying.

''This writing task, comprising 35 per cent of the assessment for the unit, was marked on five criteria, one of which was English expression,'' a UC spokeswoman said. ''The other assessment criteria were newsworthiness, difficulty and sources, fairness and accuracy, and cohesiveness and logicality.

''It was therefore possible for a student to pass the entire unit irrespective of their mark in this particular writing task, and also to pass the writing task irrespective of their mark for English expression.''

The university said it had not seen the email exchange between Mr Hull and Ms Minion and was only made aware of the allegations when they were published in The Australian on Monday.

But Ms Minion, who is a PhD student at the university, said she had repeatedly raised the matter and discussed the email with UC staff since 2010.

''I had expected to get the chance to speak to the university and provide the email exchange, especially before a media release was issued defending UC's conduct in the matter and preempting the findings of an additional upcoming 'independent investigation','' she said.

Ms Minion said it was ''incomprehensible'' to suggest that students who did not have basic written and verbal English comprehension could perform to a high level in other criteria of a subject that was taught and assessed in English.