Exams Administration
Information and resources for exams officers to plan ahead and stay on track throughout the whole exams lifecycle, from entries to results day.
Make entries with EDI and basedata
Find out how to use Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and basedata to enter students for exams.
How the process works
EDI is the process of setting up your school or college's Management Information System (MIS) so that it can receive and send your entries in the right format.
We will provide you with a basedata file for a series. This file will contain all the information that you need to make entries for each student. It will also give you details about the specification, such as timetables and fees.
You can import basedata straight into your MIS. If you need guidance on using your MIS, you will need to contact your MIS provider.
You can then set up and use JCQ's A2C Transport Application and send us the entry data. Use A2C's FAQs to help you.
The basedata files conform to version 14 of JCQ's formats for the exchange of exam related data, which uses the common JCQ data format.
Set up your MIS
To submit your entries through EDI, you'll need to take the following steps.
- Install the A2C transport application from JCQ and Avco Systems
- Download the basedata for your series (see the section below)
- See entry fields for help filling the information in correctly
Download basedata
Our entries page shows the dates when we will update this page with basedata for each series.
We can only include one discount (or classification) code per award in our basedata.
Basedata 2023/24
- 2024/25 unit link file
2023/24 unit link file (406 Bytes)
This is a text file for your MIS that matches units to awards.
- BG24 - November 2024 series
zip (2.49 KB)
Series includes:
- Functional Skills English and Mathematics at Level 1 and Level 2
- GCSE English Language, Mathematics (special series)
- Level 3 Extended Project.
- 1A25 - January 2025 series
zip (2.92 KB)
Series includes:
- AQA Certificate Level 3 Applied Business and Applied Science
- ELC Step Up to English and ELC Mathematics
- Functional Skills English and Mathematics at Level 1 and Level 2.
- 3G25 - March 2025 series
- 6A25 - June 2025 series
This file will be available on 21 November 2024
Series includes:
- AS and A-level
- AQA Certificate Level 3 Applied Business, Applied Science and Mathematical Studies
- Functional Skills English and Mathematics, Level 1 and Level 2
- Level 3 Extended Project.
- 6G25 - June 2025 series
This file will be available on 21 November 2024
Series includes:
- ELC
- FCSE
- GCSE
- Level 1 Foundation and Level 2 Higher Projects
- Level 2 Certificate in Further Mathematics.
- About zip files
A zip file contains one or more files that have usually been compressed to reduce file size. To open (unzip) such a file with Windows or Apple OS, just double-click on it.
If you aren't using either of these operating systems, you may need to download and install a special piece of software that will zip and unzip files.
If you don't already have one, you can download a free unzipping tool, such as WinZip , WinRAR or 7zip .
Each entry option and a small number of component codes within our basedata have a gradeset code. This code identifies the grades that are available for that entry/component. The spreadsheet of gradeset codes for all awarding bodies is published by JCQ.
Older series are on our basedata archive page.
Time allowed set to zero
Some exam papers have been split into multiple components (eg section A is a component and section B is a component, but sections A and B are designed to be taken as one exam in a single exam slot).
As in the JCQ formats we’ve set the time allowed for these components as ‘000’.
Students can spend as much time as they want to on each component within the overall exam.