Qualifications Scotland

We're working on a new website. You'll see references to both Qualifications Scotland and SQA while we complete this work. Learn more.
Categories

Stay up to date with Computing and Digital Blogs

Read our privacy statement.

Computing & Digital Blog

November 4, 2014

Big Data

As you know, we’ve been developing a couple of Higher National Units in the area of big data for a few months. They are: Big Data (SCQF Level 7) Data Science (SCQF Level 8). They’re almost complete now. The Big Data unit is complete, and is currently going through vetting, so I would be interested in your comments on it. Both units will be available to centres from January. The Level 7 unit will be added to HNC Computing, and…

Categories: Computing

Bobby 0

November 3, 2014

Annual meeting of External Verifiers

The External Verifiers (EVs) for my subject area met on Saturday for their annual update meeting. The Senior EV (David Drennan) leads the event. The meeting took place in the SQA offices in Glasgow. There have been a few changes to the team. For one thing, there are now more women on the team than men, which is a first for the Computing EV team. When I was an EV in the 1990’s, if I remember correctly, there wasn’t a…

Categories: Computing

Bobby 0

October 24, 2014

Welcome to Liz

I recently wrote about Helen, who is replacing Hilary, but I want to introduce Liz Sinclair. Helen can’t join my team until the end of November so I needed help during the period between now and then, given that Hilary has moved onto her new post. So Liz will, temporarily, provide cover until Helen can join me. I won’t update my team diagram until Helen joins us. Liz has taken over Hilary’s portfolio so, essentially, e-mail Liz in place of…

Categories: Computing

Bobby 0

October 22, 2014

Review of HNC/D Computer Games Development

As part of SQA’s regular review process, the HNC/D Computer Games Development is due to be reviewed this year. SQA was the first awarding body in the UK to introduce qualifications in this area. The awards have proven to be popular, with over 1000 pupils in Scottish schools doing the NPA award. When we’re pretty sure that a qualification needs an update, we immediately commence a full review. When we’re not so sure, we begin by “scoping” the changes needed.…

Categories: Computing

Bobby 0