Scottish Colleges Computing Consortium

I was invited to attend a meeting of the Scottish Colleges Computing Consortium (SC3) this morning, which was held at the City of Glasgow College. The group is convened by Cameron Walker of Aberdeen College. I was invited to speak about two things: the new way of accrediting vendor awards within HN qualifications, and the new HND Computer Science.

There was unanimity about the value of vendor awards within vocational Computing qualifications but some debate about how best to do this. The current (pilot) system involves direct accreditation of vendor qualifications within SQA awards but this, according to centres, has had mixed success. We're currently carrying out a review of this new way of recognising vendor qualifications and I promised to represent the CS3's views when I was asked for my input. Several constructive suggestions were proposed at the meeting about how to address this problem.

As regular readers will know, I am currently carrying out a "mini-review" of the new HND Computer Science and I wanted to know what the SC3's views were on the new award. They pretty much chimed with what everyone else has been telling me -- the new award is liked (and popular with students) but there needs to be a better match between the title and the contents.

Contact Cameron for more information about SC3. Contact me about the review of HND Computer Science.