It’s nearly 3 years since Ofqual announced the outcomes of their consultation for Awarding Organisations (AOs) “to put in place Centre Assessment Standards Scrutiny arrangements for all assessments marked by centres”. (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/rules-confirmed-to-improve-awarding-organisation-centre-controls)
So we thought we’d offer a brief glimpse into some of the ways creatiogreen support’s AO’s through the qualification life-cycle through the integrated features we implemented to help clients meet the CASS requirements. From conception of a qualification to its delivery and subsequent reviews all within a single coherent and integrated solution that streamlines an AO’s qualification and CASS activities, enabling an AO to make informed decisions, while reducing manual effort and eliminating silo working across teams!
If you want to find out more, get in touch to arrange an initial catch-up and if you send us an overview of your CASS arrangements, we’ll look to review and incorporate them into a free demo for you and your colleagues. For now we hope you find this article helpful and thought-provoking.
1. Ensures CASS requirements are robustly considered during a qualification’s initial conception and development
The Product Development Module’s embedded CASS strategy template prompts product development teams to engage with relevant colleagues to develop and consider CASS requirements such as the Learner, Customer, assessment and delivery profiles of the qualification etc. As well as resource requirements, risks, and the future review schedule amongst other things. In doing so it automatically files and stores supporting evidence and decisions, making it easily accessible for future reviews and internal and external audits.
creatiogreen’s Product Development, Launch, Review, and Withdrawal Forms are fully mapped to relevant General Conditions and are enhanced and configured by each AO to reflect their internal approaches and additional requirements.
2. Ensures CASS strategies can be easily accessed by centres
Once a qualification and its associated CASS strategy is developed, the core qualification information – including CASS strategy – can be made immediately available for centres to view and apply for approval.
The AO can also make available other key information and materials for centres to download – from qualification specifications, to delivery and assessment materials - ensuring centres have the latest information to make informed approval and delivery decisions.
Centres can also access a range of other information published by the AO such as policies, service level commitments, handbooks etc. With powerful, auditable features to control visibility and access.
creatiogreen can even help produce some of the materials at the click of a button if required by the AO - meaning if they make a change to a qualification then a new version of the specification could be immediately produced.
3. Supports the approval and profiling of centre delivery arrangements in line with CASS arrangements
When centres apply for approval to offer a qualification, creatiogreen requires them to submit information and sign up to terms and conditions as required by the AO and submit the application to the AO to review and process.
The AO can also assign actions to the centre and make an initial risk profile of the centre’s readiness to deliver the qualification as well as risk profiling the staff and sites they propose to use in the delivery of the qualification. All of which can be updated over time through automated actions triggered by future EQA or moderation activities (or manually as required).
4. Integrates quality assurance, sampling and moderation activities with learner information to reduce workloads, timelines and the risk of data duplication and errors
In creatiogreen, the integration of EQA/Moderation reports with Learner records eliminates the need for manual data entry, making the grading and awarding decisions based on real-time, accurate information.
This improves the efficiency of the process and ensures that the decisions made by EQA/Moderators are informed and up-to-date as they have real-time access to any grades and awarding decisions made by the centre and/or evidence uploaded per learner per component.
The system seamless integrations ensure Learner records are updated immediately with the grading and awarding decisions from the sampling/moderation activity subject to the qualification's awarding rules the AO applied. This can result – for some AOs - in the immediate availability of e-certificates and result transcripts for the centre and learner to download, reducing manual production and delays. creatiogreen can even email the certificates and their transcripts directly to Learners.
It can also update the centre’s profile with the outcomes of the activity and automatically files the report, assigns actions, updates future visit dates, changes risk profiles, and logs key information and intelligence to inform future visit and quality assurance strategies. Resulting in a more efficient and streamlined process for the AO; again reducing burden and data duplication.
The Customer Management Module in creatiogreen also provides various visit planning tools and a comprehensive sampling tool to help the AO ensure that their EQA activities are sampling the correct number of learners, components and centre staff within the specified timelines outlined in the associated CASS strategy. This helps EQAs and their managers have complete visibility and understanding at all times, which helps assure their senior staff and Governing Body.
5. Provides immediate access to relevant information to support post-results arrangements
creatiogreen also provides both centres and Learners (via the Learner Portal) with the ability to appeal decisions made by the AO, as well as allowing the AO to launch investigations into potential malpractice or maladministration.
This integration of appeals and investigations with learner, qualification, and centre profiles allows the AO's staff to quickly access relevant information and make informed decisions.
It also allows an AO to make changes – where required - to results, awards, and qualifications with ease, with complete and transparent audit trails.
6. Ensures informed qualification and CASS reviews
creatiogreen also includes a Qualification Review Form, Customer Feedback Form, immediate delivery activity data, take-up and real-time CASS dashboards, ensuring a holistic picture of the qualification and its performance, making it easier for the AO to review the qualification and identify areas for improvement.
With the CASS dashboard bringing together the risk profile of the qualification alongside take-up and awarding information and the risk profiles of customers.
All of which helps lead to informed decisions about the qualification, its delivery and the ongoing support and monitoring arrangements required going forward. Helping to ensure the reviewing team makes data-driven decisions.
Hopefully this update provides you with a feel for how creatiogreen could help you manage your qualifications and CASS activities going forward in a more coherent and transformative way. Integrating your teams, processes and data seamlessly; streamlining and automating manual tasks and providing real-time access to information and reports to support informed decision-making.
.png?width=19&name=317752_facebook_social%20media_social_icon%20(1).png){kind=small}