I’d like to update you on what’s happening during the exceptional circumstances of the coronavirus crisis.<\/p>\n
SQA closed for most employees last week. Me and my team are currently (and for the foreseeable future) working from home. But we are working. It’s taken us a little while to find our feet (and get remote communications up-and-running) but we’re just about there now. We’re using Microsoft Teams<\/a> to work through the crisis.<\/p>\n I’ve received a lot of enquiries about the assessment of vocational qualifications — particularly the assessment of Graded Unit examinations (within HN awards) and unit assessment (within all awards). SQA management is currently working on a policy for these (and similar) situations. An announcement will be made in the near future. In the meantime, we’re available to offer support if you need any assistance. Please contact computing@sqa.org.uk<\/a> if you need any help.<\/p>\n We also plan to continue with qualification development during the period of home confinement. This will take place using online meetings and other means of virtual communication. We’ve had to cancel all of the planned face-to-face meetings that were scheduled but we’ll be in touch in the near future with alternative arrangements. We’ve got a couple of on-going developments (PDA Cyber Security and PDA Data Science) that we plan to carry out using virtual validations. If you’re involved with these developments (either as a member of the development team or validation panel), we’ll be in touch soon.<\/p>\n