Computing & Digital Blog

November 11, 2016

Ofcom CMR Event

I attended the Ofcom Stakeholder event on 4 November at their flagship Edinburgh office, where they talked through the 2016 Communications Market Report. A number of keynote speakers provided context to the report, including a presentation from Evelyn MacDowall from the Wheatley Group, who highlighted the digital volunteering partnership between SQA and Wheatley Group, as well as showcasing the Digital Learning Guides that we have produced to help the Wheatley community janitors get online. The focus of the day was…

Categories: Digital Skills

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November 9, 2016

Consultation Workshop to review Information Security Qualifications and Apprenticeship Frameworks

You are invited to attend and contribute to a workshop to review the content and structure of the SQA Competence Based Qualifications in Information Security. The workshop will also consider the impact of any proposed changes on the Modern and Technical Apprenticeship Frameworks which incorporate these qualifications. This review has been triggered by: a) Expiry of the current qualifications in March 2017; and b) The publication of revised National Occupational Standards in Information Security. In addition, there will be the…

Categories: Assessment, Computing

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November 1, 2016

HNC/D Computer Games Development validation

The validation event for the refreshed HNC/D Computer Games Development took place yesterday. I’m delighted to report that the proposed changes were validated with conditions. The purpose of a validation event is for a Validation Panel (which must consist of people who were not involved in the development) to scrutinise a new (or revised) qualification by asking questions of the Qualification Development Team (QDT). The Panel consisted of representatives of colleges, universities, employers and SQA. I thought that yesterday’s validation…

Categories: Computing

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October 31, 2016

External Verifier meeting

The team of External Verifiers (EVs) met on Saturday in the SQA offices in Glasgow. The EVs meet once per year for a “standardisation” meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to ensure that the verifiers apply the same standards to centres when they carry out verification visits. It was a good meeting and we covered a lot of ground. The team consists of 10 EVs, led by the Senior External Verifier. The EVs are selected from colleges, universities, schools and…

Categories: Assessment, External Verification

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October 18, 2016

Welcome to Natalie

I recently mentioned some team changes. I’m pleased to let you you know that Natalie Mann is joining the team until January, when Emma returns from maternity leave. So, the team now consists of four people: me (Qualifications Manager for Computing), Helen (Qualifications Officer for Computing), Hilary (Qualifications Officer for Maths and Computing) and Natalie (temporary Qualifications Officer for Computing). I will ask Hilary and Natalie to introduce themselves via this blog. Natalie officially joins the team tomorrow. My first task is…

Categories: SQA

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