Review of the year

This seems a good time to look over the last 12 months.

The main project has been the HN Review, which culminated in a recent validation. There is still some work to be done, but these new awards are on schedule to be available to centres from next session. Some centres offered the new HNC this year, while some others introduced some of the new units into their existing HNC programme. By all accounts, the new units are popular with centres.

I started the year with an appeal for members for our committees. And we're still looking for volunteers so please come forward if you are interested. January also saw the publication of the Royal Society's report on computing in schools, which made interesting reading. February saw an announcement about new e-commerce units and the a review of the HN Graded Units. March saw the commencement of the HN 2.0 project. In April, I announced new teaching materials for the Computer Games awards, and new Mobile Technology awards. I spent most of May in Australia but managed to visit Clydebank College. In June I served on the validation panel for the new non-advanced awards in Mobile Technology, chaired a Sector Panel meeting, and presented at the annual Scotland's Colleges event.

The second half of the year saw us pass 400 followers on Twitter, and I presented a paper at the Computer Assisted Assessment Conference in Southampton. August began with a visit to James Watt College, followed by a presentation at the E-Assessment Scotland Conference. But the most important development that month was the formation of a Qualification Review Team for Computing, which will try to improve articulation from college to university. September began with an appeal for you to consider becoming an External Verifier. There were Qualification Support Team meetings in the middle of the month, and the validation for the new NC in Computer Games Development at SCQF Level 6 took place later in the month. We opened the annual satisfaction survey in October, and I sent update letters to centres later than month. I also announced that we were about to commence a review of NC Digital Media Computing and PC Passport. November began with me giving a presentation about vocational Computing awards at the inaugural conference of Computing at School, followed by a visit to Cardonald College to attend an ITPCS meeting. We also held the annual Heads of Computing event later that month, which was very well attended and seemed to go well. The year ended with the validation event for the new HNDs. I also managed to visit Forth Valley College. Finally, we closed the satisfaction survey, which, at first sight, provided interesting results.

So, it's been a busy and productive year for the team, and 2013 promises to be just as busy.