Computing & Digital Blog

January 5, 2016

Welcome back

SQA returned today, after the Christmas holiday. Most schools and colleges also return today. I wrote a review of the year in my final post of last year, which highlighted the high (and low) points of 2015. So, in this post, I will talk about the coming year. My immediate priority is to replace Helen, who was successful in getting Caroline’s permanent position. We’re a small team so losing one member of it is significant. We’re having to prioritise our work and some…

Categories: Computing

Bobby 3

December 18, 2015

Review of the year

This seems a good time to look back over 2015. The most significant event (for me) was losing Caroline, who had worked with me for a long time. My loss is SOLAR’s gain. On a happier note, Caroline’s vacant position was filled by Helen, who had been working with me on a temporary basis. From a qualification perspective, the big development was the NPAs in Cyber Security, which went live at the end of July, followed by the new Award…

Categories: Development

Bobby 1

December 16, 2015

Christmas Cyber Security lectures

I attended the Christmas Cyber Security lecture at Glasgow University yesterday afternoon. It was the usual high standard, with great speakers from all over the UK talking about various aspects of cyber security. This year’s theme was the new NPAs in Cyber Security so the speakers all addressed some aspect of this qualification. I particularly enjoyed the informative and entertaining lecture on selecting a password. The lectures have been organised by Martin Beaton since their inception. Martin is a great…

Categories: Cyber Security, Event

Bobby 0

December 16, 2015

PDA Software Development validation

The validation event for the new PDA in Software Development took place yesterday in the SQA offices in Glasgow. The validation panel consisted of representatives of colleges, universities, employers and SQA. The purpose of a validation event is for a group of independent experts to scrutinise a new (or revised) qualification. I’m pleased to report that the panel liked the proposed award, describing it as “needed” and “very good”. Some improvements were suggested (but none that related to the structure or…

Categories: Development, PDA, Validation

Bobby 4

December 14, 2015

Cyber Security assessments

I’ve had a several enquiries about the assessments for the new Cyber Security awards. We are developing Assessment Support Packs (ASPs) for every Unit within the new NPAs, as well as an ASP for the new Cyber Security Fundamentals Unit. The assessments all have two parts: (1) an assessment of knowledge (normally a short multiple choice test); and (2) an assessment of practical abilities (normally a short practical exercise). Each ASP will contain the second bit (the practical assessment) with…

Categories: Assessment, Cyber Security, SOLAR