External verification reports

One of the jobs of the Senior External Verifier (SEV) is to write an annual report on each verification group (VG) in their area. I've been reading the annual reports for my groups recently. My main verification groups are: 288 Information Technology, 357 Computer Science and 358 Information Technology.

The reports made good reading. They were very positive, with lots of improvements compared to previous years. Long standing issues, such as the lack of "red ink" on candidates' written work, have been (largely) addressed in centres. David also noted a big increase in the use of e-assessment in centres, and improved internal verification procedures. His reports also covered Graded Units and improvements were noted here too.

I normally write down action points after reading the reports but this year I had none, which is indicative of the improvements that have taken place. David will be presenting his findings at the forthcoming Heads of Computing event. Coming on top of the recent Aspect report on Computing, it would appear that there has been real improvements in teaching and assessment in colleges.

One of the things discussed at the recent EV annual update meeting was that centres weren't sure what units were in each of the Verification Groups. SQA has been working on a solution to this, but in the meantime you might find this spreadsheet helpful since it lists all of the units in each group.


You can download the complete spreadsheet here.