Thursday 25 August 2011

Meeting with vendors

I posted something a few weeks ago about our plans to incorporate vendors qualifications into the new HN awards. Caroline subsequently invited all of the vendors that we work with to a meeting, which was held in the Glasgow office this morning. Representatives of Microsoft and Oracle, among others, attended.

I began by describing the progress-to-date with this review, but the majority of the time was spent explaining our plans for accrediting vendor qualifications within the new awards. The main change is that we plan to directly accredit vendor qualifications rather than, as we presently do, accredit them by "translating" them into SQA units (what we call "credit transfer").
I emphasised that the final decision for including, or not, a specific vendor's awards lay with the QDT, and that the QDT would only consider vendor awards that were SCQF accredited (few vendor awards are) so the proposed system has opportunities and challenges for vendors.

Our plans to directly accredit vendor awards will be piloted in one or more of the new HN awards to see how it goes. But it's an exciting idea and one that utilises the potential of SCQF to mix and match qualifications from various bodies to provide the best possible qualification for students.

The next stage is for vendors to put their awards onto SCQF, and formally request their inclusion in one or more of the new HN awards. We have a devised a process for this, culminating in the QDT approving, or not, their inclusion.

Contact Caroline if you want to know more about the proposed vendor accredition system.

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