Moving to on-screen marking for Cambridge Technicals: what it means for schools and colleges

Commentary – five minute read

Lauren McLachlan, Senior Customer Support Manager

As well as responding to the challenges of coronavirus over the last two years, we’ve also been moving ahead with some planned improvements. The majority of our GCSEs, A Levels and Cambridge Nationals exam scripts are marked on-screen, and now it’s the turn of Cambridge Technicals. I therefore wanted to let you know what we’re doing and what it means for schools and colleges offering our Cambridge Technicals (2016) exams.

What are we doing?

After successful pilots in the January 2021 and January 2022 series for two units, we are now rolling out on-screen marking for additional units in the June 2022 series with a view to expanding this in future series. In June 2022, these units will be:

• Level 3 Business Units 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 15 (all units)
• Level 3 Digital Media Units 1, 2, 6, 25 (all units)
• Level 3 Health and Social Care Unit 3.

What is on-screen marking?

Scripts can be marked either ‘traditionally’ or ‘on screen’. In traditional marking, scripts are sent to examiners who mark the hard copy and return marks and scripts, separately, to OCR. In on-screen marking, scripts are scanned and sent to examiners electronically. They are then marked by examiners on their computer screens using our on-screen marking system. Moving to on-screen marking allows us to allocate scripts to examiners and monitor progress more efficiently as well as reduce the amount of travelling a script has to do.

What does this mean for schools and colleges?

The biggest change is hardcopy attendance lists. Currently, most attendance lists have to be submitted online via Interchange. However, if you have candidates taking the units above this summer, we’ll send you a paper attendance register for you to return with your scripts – there won’t be an online attendance list. We’ll send the attendance registers with your script return labels. As for GCSEs and A Levels, you must amend the attendance register to include those candidates who have been entered late or do not have an entry.

With traditional marking, we send separate script return labels for each unit and qualification. For example, one label for those students taking Unit 1 as part of the Certificate and another for students taking it as part of the Diploma. With on-screen marking, we can combine labels for each unit so that no matter which overall qualification a student is taking, all the scripts for that unit can be returned in the same packet. 

Will there be any other changes?

In order to track the question papers securely, barcodes are added to the question papers, but you probably won’t notice much of a difference other than this. However, it will be even more important than ever to make sure the instructions to use black pen and avoid correcting fluid are followed since papers will now be scanned.

There will be no changes to the way you receive results or for any of our post-results services – you still submit your requests via the online form on our website.

Stay connected

You can email us at support@ocr.org.uk or follow us on Twitter @OCRCustSupport.

About the author

Lauren McLachlan – Senior Customer Support Manager

Lauren is the Senior Customer Support Manager. The Customer Support Team provides support, training and guidance for centres administering OCR qualifications. Before joining the Customer Support Team Lauren worked as an exams manager in a busy sixth form college and exams officer in an 11–16 high school. Her experience in these roles has given Lauren a diverse range of knowledge that helps to assist and support our customers.