We calibrate the distorted wave Born approximation (DWBA) for electron impact excitation processes empirically. Differential cross sections (DCSs) for the excitation of the 2p53s, 2p53p, 2p54s and 2p54p configurations of Ne and the 3p54s and 3p 54p configurations of Ar by electron impact are calculated using DWBA for incident energies between 20 and 100 eV. The calculated results are compared with the absolute experimental measurements and other theoretical results. We found that the structure of the DCS can be well reproduced by the DWBA model while the magnitude is overestimated for most cases considered here. The differences in magnitude between DWBA and experiment are used to test the calibration of DWBA such that the DWBA can be used to describe laser-induced electron impact excitation processes. These processes are involved in the non-sequential double ionization of atoms in strong laser fields.