Significant work has been undertaken in preparation for the summer assessment period:

– by Professional Services

• • Assessment systems’ capacity has been increased to accommodate the higher number of assessments.
    • Questionmark has been upsized from 10th May to 15th June.
    • Blackboard capacity is being increased over the assessment period.
  • Clear communication routes and processes to manage major incidents have been put in place or reinforced.
  • Additional “just in time” support is available in the DEO and IT Services.
  • Where possible, standardised assessment areas and processes have been created to simplify support and improve the student experience, including:
    • Processes which may be needed in the event of major technical issues have been cleared from a policy and data security perspective (eg, do not email assessments, wait until the system is available and submit as usual).
    • improvements for students (eg, personalised exam times).

– by schools and faculties

• Every exam should have a backup plan in place before the assessment (eg, use of a late submission point for Blackboard file upload exams).
• Technical settings on exam assessments should be flexible enough to accommodate a short break in service (eg, by not setting MCQ-based exams to auto-submit).
• Relevant central school and faculty staff should subscribe to the DEO blog.

For centrally supported exams the DEO has set up assessments with backups and appropriate technical settings. For locally supported assessment, schools should ensure that this work has been done and any relevant information communicated to students.