Computing & Digital Blog

September 4, 2015

Annual update letters

I’ve been working on the update letter for non-advanced qualifications recently, and today I asked Helen to arrange for its distribution to centres. As many of you know, I send a letter about non-advanced awards (NU/NPA/NC) and a letter about advanced awards (HNU/HNC/HND/PDA) to centres every year. These letters summarise the developments that have taken place over the previous 12 months. There is nothing in either letter that regular readers of this blog don’t already know. In fact, they contain a…

Categories: Computing

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September 3, 2015

Sharing digital skills

One of the recommendations of the Scottish Government’s Digital Participation Charter is to encourage and support staff to become digital champions and share their digital skills with others. In an earlier blog post I mentioned that SQA is committed to volunteering as a key part of our Corporate Social Responsibility strategy. Our employees are able to spend 21 hours a year on volunteering activities that help our communities and the development of digital skills in communities fits perfectly with themes of social…

Categories: Digital Skills

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September 1, 2015

External Verifier annual update and standardisation meeting

We went along to the annual External Verifier (EV) update meeting on Saturday. This year’s event was chaired by the new Senior External Verifier for Computing. The role of the Senior EV has changed. It’s now more of a leadership role than a bureaucratic one. The purpose of the annual update is to ensure that EVs are familiar with procedures, and that they all apply the same standards during their visits to centres. A wide range of issues were discussed at…

Categories: Computing, Verification

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August 31, 2015

HNC/D Computer Games Development – Consultation Survey

As you will be aware from previous blog posts, the Qualification Design Team (QDT) for HNC/D Computer Games Development have been working on a minor review of the current awards which is being led by Gill Flockhart of Dundee and Angus College. We are now at the stage of consultation and the survey is now live. You are access it here: HNC/D Computer Games Survey The aim of this survey is to get feedback on the draft consultation. This feedback…

Categories: Computing

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August 27, 2015

QDT for PDA Software Development

I’ve previously announced the development of a new PDA in Software Development. The Qualification Development Team (QDT) met for the first time this morning in the Glasgow office. It’s a good team, consisting of representatives schools, colleges, universities, professional bodies and employers, with a wealth of knowledge and experience in this field. The meeting covered the role of the QDT, the qualification development process, and tasks and timescales. We had a particularly good conversation about what should be in the…

Categories: Computing, Development, PDA