January 11, 2018 - Helen -
Our annual Computing Conference 2018 will take place on Friday, 26 January, 10:00 – 15:30 with registration at 9:30am, in Radisson Blu Hotel Glasgow. The event will be of interest to college lecturers and school teachers – or anyone with an interest in vocational qualifications. The event will include an update on SQA Computing qualifications and external verification. There are also networking opportunities. The focus, as always, will be vocational qualifications but we will have interesting keynotes about contemporary issues in education and…
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January 3, 2018 - Bobby -
Happy New Year to all our readers from the team! We hope that you had a nice holiday. We’ve put together a short list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) about working with us. You can find it here. We did this because we are sometimes asked why we chose someone – or, more commonly, why we didn’t choose someone. The FAQ tries to explain our selection process (among other questions). We try to be as transparent as possible in the…
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December 21, 2017 - Bobby -
Emma, Helen and I would like to wish you a nice holiday when it comes. We stop today until Wednesday, 3 January. But, in the meantime, you can contact us in the usual way. It’s been a good year for the team. It started with the validation of HNC Data Analytics, followed later in the year with the validation of HNC/D Technologies in Business. Two NPAs were refreshed this year: NPA Digital Media and NPA Web Design. We commenced the…
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December 19, 2017 - Bobby -
I attended the Digital Skills Partnership (DSP) event on “Data Science, machine learning and AI” at City of Glasgow College last week. The DSP is a new collaboration between universities and colleges to provide CPD to lecturers in Computer Science. The Chief Technology Officer of an informatics company gave an interesting talk about how business can use data science and AI, and also discussed how things are likely to develop in the future. There was a good attendance at the…
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December 18, 2017 - sqablogs -
An amendment to the framework of the Diploma in Digital Application Support at SCQF level 6 (GL2K 46) was recently approved (13 December 2017). The amendment is as follows: Addition of Unit H3AH 04 Investigating and Defining Customer Requirements for IT and Telecoms Systems 2 to Group B1 of the framework. This change should appear on the SQA website in the near future. You may also check this change in the CBQ History of changes log. For further information or…
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December 13, 2017 - Bobby -
The team that will be responsible for writing the units that are part of the new HNC Cyber Security met yesterday in Glasgow. There are 19 people in the team, with a good mix of the new (to unit writing) and the experienced. There is also an interesting mix of backgrounds – including people from the school and training sectors (as well as, of course, the college sector). I was particularly pleased to see school teachers get involved in the…
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December 9, 2017 - Bobby -
Once a year, the External Verifier (EV) team, led by the Senior External Verifier, meet to ensure that they all apply the same standards when they visit centres. There was a “standardisation” meeting in Glasgow today. Me and my team attend these meetings to provide an update on the qualification developments that have taken place over the last year so that the EVs are aware of these changes – and what they might face when they visit centres. It’s always…
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December 7, 2017 - Bobby -
I’m a member of a working group that is looking at replacement qualifications for the existing Diploma in IT & Telecoms Professionals, which exists at SCQF Levels 5, 6 and 8. The group met this morning to look at the replacement qualifications. Tech Partnership is proposing to replace these qualifications with three new awards: Diploma in IT Infrastructure Diploma in IT Solution Development Diploma in Digital Telecoms. These will be available at SCQF Levels 6 and 8 — so there…
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December 6, 2017 - sqablogs -
The revised NPAs in Digital Media (SCQF Levels 4 and 5) and Web Design (SCQF Level 5) have now been coded and are available to centres. The awards were validated in November, without conditions, which reflects the hard work that went into this revision. The new codes are: GN59 44 – Digital Media (SCQF Level 4) GN58 45 – Digital Media (SCQF Level 5) GN57 45 – Web Design (SCQF Level 5) These awards will replace Digital Media Basics (G9FD 44), Digital Media…
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November 28, 2017 - Bobby -
I attended a meeting yesterday afternoon about possible changes to Higher National Qualifications (HNQs). SQA has been considering ways of reducing assessment within HNQs for some time and the purpose of yesterday’s meeting was to consult with internal staff about some of the possible changes. People, generally, liked the HN unit specification so that’s unlikely to change. But there may be ways of encouraging more holistic assessment. The Graded Unit specification appears to have more issues so this may be…
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