Examiner and moderator new technology

There are developments in many subjects where examiners' marks can be submitted to AQA electronically, or where examination scripts can be marked on-line.

The use of technology in national examinations is now well-established and AQA has several years' experience in the electronic marking of candidates' work.

We were the first Awarding Body to offer live on-screen tests in a major public examination and we are standardising some of our examiners remotely using software designed specifically for this purpose.

In Summer 2006 1500 examiners in 83 GCSE components used electronic marking to mark nearly 1.5 million candidates' scripts. New on-screen quality control measures enabled the accuracy of marking to be checked on a daily basis and has enhanced quality assurance procedures.

Although some examiners may have had initial misgivings about the use of the new technology, but these wories were dissipated through actual experience and examiners found the software easy to use. It is really encouraging that the satisfaction rate of examiners in these components from 2006 to 2007 is actually higher than in many traditionally marked components.

Find out what examiners and others say about e-marking

In 2007 we used electronic marking for 2 million scripts involving 2812 examiners in 102 GCSE papers and eight GCE papers.

A small number of centres took up our invitation to offer on-screen tests in GCSE Science last November. Their experience was positive; indeed for many candidates it feels more natural to work at their PCs rather than with paper and pen. We are actively encouraging many more centres to make use of the on-screen versions of the GCSE Science tests in future sessions.

To enable staff to remain with their students we have introduced an e-standardisation programme which will allow us to standardise examiners remotely. This has many advantages over the traditional face-to-face meetings.

Examiners can work through the standardisation material at their own pace and at times convenient to them. Senior examiners are able to detect deviations from the agreed standard in their trial marking more effectively and quickly and provide the necessary guidance without the time delays caused by the postal interchange of paper scripts.

Our research indicates that this approach to standardisation will allow us to broaden the available pool of potential examiners and at the same time increase the effectiveness of the standardisation process and quality of the support and guidance provided to examiners.

AQA piloted this initiative in a number of papers in summer 2007 with a view to standardising the majority of examiners remotely in the coming years.

AQA's commitment is: we will use new technologies only where they improve the quality of our assessments and the service we provide to centres and examiners. We will continue to reject any use of technology which is educationally inappropriate. The reliability and validity of our assessments remain at the heart of all our work.

Please let AQA know that you can use this technology in Question 11 on the application form.