Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals: arrangements for students producing work from home

• Centre requirements for authenticating candidate work produced away from the centre
• Approaches to authenticating candidate work 
• What can and can’t be done from home
• Using discussion to authenticate candidates’ work
• If you cannot authenticate candidate work

To support the moderation process, centres must:

1. Complete a centre declaration for each unit 
2. Record how the centre has authenticated the work and retain it (so it is available at our request)
3. Confirm for which learning outcomes or assessment criteria adaptations have been used, including production of work away from the centre, on the relevant unit recording sheets which accompany all candidates’ work
4. Retain signed candidate authentication forms for all candidates.

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As part of the internal assessment process, centres must do the following before they submit work for moderation:

• For each assessment task, set specific timescales for the work to be started and finished. This must specify times and dates, and should be in days rather than weeks. The centre staff responsible for assessing the qualification must check on candidates’ progress regularly, especially where tasks might take some time to complete. If the teacher who normally assesses the unit cannot check on progress, another member of the teaching staff can do this. (Keep a record of the times and dates and which candidates are producing work from home, for which unit(s) and learning outcomes or assessment criteria).
• Make sure any output produced remotely matches the candidate’s overall performance in the qualification. For example, you could compare the evidence produced by the candidate away from the centre with that produced in the centre. (Keep a record of the notes you prepare for internal standardisation and the minutes of internal standardisation meetings).
• If there are any concerns about the authenticity of work, hold a follow-up discussion with the candidate. This is to check their understanding to help decide whether work is authentic. (Keep a record of the questions you ask and notes on the candidate’s responses).
• Keep a copy of all evidence of the measures taken to support candidates’ declaration of authenticity. You must make this evidence available to us on request. 
• Remind candidates about malpractice when producing work at home. For example:
  
  • what plagiarism is
  • how to reference sources 
  • how referenced work is meant to be used to support the candidate’s own thinking. 

There’s more information for teachers and candidates here:

• Poster about referencing work
• JCQ’s document Instructions on Conducting Coursework (for guidance on what constitutes malpractice)
• JCQ’s document Plagiarism in Assessments: Guidance for Teachers/Assessors

We have support materials specifically for Cambridge Nationals in Creative iMedia:

• Guidance for teachers on using referencing and on acceptable levels of guidance to candidates
• Best practice video for candidates

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For work that would normally be completed in the centre under direct supervision, candidates should only work elsewhere if it is the only option that allows the assessment to be completed. You are not required to use this adaptation. Please take the needs and well-being of the candidates into account when considering whether to use this adaptation.

Consider the following points when deciding what work candidates are able to do from home:

• Candidates should not do any tasks at home that have health and safety risks for them or others. 
• Candidates need to have the ability/be well-placed to produce work from home. This includes having access to suitable resources, a quiet area and importantly being able to produce work from home without being over directed by a teacher through instructions for completing the task or resources created by the school/college to help them complete it. (Make sure candidates know about the risks of getting help at home from family members or any other person as it could count as over-assistance.) 
• Teachers must be able to authenticate the work. Consider the time it will take you to authenticate the work of your cohort and how you will authenticate the format of the work the candidates will present to you.
• If possible, avoid evidence for a whole unit being produced remotely. If some parts of a unit are completed under normal supervision, you will be able to compare the standard of the evidence produced remotely with that produced in the centre. As part of this you should consider which parts of a unit are the best for candidates to do remotely. If the only way to complete the unit is to allow the candidate to produce work for all the tasks from home that is allowed, assuming it is safe to do so. We expect this would happen in when a candidate cannot be at school/college (for example if they are self-isolating for a long period of time but well enough to work). 

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The reason for having a discussion is to confirm whether the candidate worked independently, by checking their understanding of aspects of what they did. For example, you could ask a question about a specific part of the work.

Do not confuse this approach with a professional discussion, referred to in some of the specific unit adaptations. Professional discussions are intended to provide an alternative form of evidence to replace the actual performance of a task and therefore would need to go into enough detail to cover the assessment criteria for that task.

Consider the following:

• Questioning should allow you to check the candidate’s understanding of the topic. For example: 
  • Ask candidates to explain terminology used or the significance of concepts covered in their work. 
  • Ask the candidate about the process they used to complete the work. This could include asking them about sources of information and the stages they went through. For example: Why did you choose to use this method? Can you describe or explain how you produced that/what steps you followed?
  • Ask if anybody helped them with the work.
• Consider asking the candidate how a piece of work relates to other parts of the assignment. For example: How does this link to research already completed? How will you apply your ideas to the next stage of the unit?
• Let candidates use props to help them respond. For example, they could show material they have produced or relevant images or equipment.
• Use the assessment criteria to guide the discussion so the questions are directly related to what they needed to show that they can do/understand.
• Keep a record of the questions and answers.

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Having followed the guidance given here, if you don’t think that work produced is the candidate’s own, you should consider the following.

Plagiarism/non-referencing of sources

If the work is not the ‘final’ version to be marked but is in progress, you can:

• feed back to the candidate that some or all of the content is plagiarised
• give them an opportunity to do it properly in the time available before it’s submitted for internal assessment.

If it is the final version, you should:

• adjust the marks awarded to take into account the parts of the assessment that are plagiarised 
• annotate the Unit Recording Sheet so that the moderator knows this has been done and
• report the case to us as possible malpractice.

Other ways when work is not the candidate’s own/not completed independently

If you think the candidate has had help from others in producing the work, you must report the candidate to us as possible malpractice. (Teachers must also be careful to not over-assist candidates.)

If you think the candidate has copied another candidate, then you must report both candidates (the ‘copier’ and the ‘copied’) to us as possible malpractice.

If you have any queries, please call our Customer Support Centre on 01223 553998 or email us at support@ocr.org.uk.