Moderators

Professor Clay Christensen of Harvard Business School describes a theory explaining why new start ups and innovations can displace dominant player that seem to be in unassailable positions in the market.  Why are the  dominant players unable to see and implement these new technologies or business methods themselves? There is more detail here.

The INGOT strategy draws on many of the key features of Christensen's theory.

 1. Enabling new players to get into the market

In UK schools courses leading to formal government qualifications start at age 14 with qualifications normally gained from 16 up. Our market research shows that there is a market for such qualifications for learners from age 7 upwards and there are more of these than between ages 14-16 but there are no budgets set aside to pay for qualifications in this age group. We enable that market by fundamentally lowering the cost of delivery and using knowledge of government targeted funding to make the qualifications accessible. This is in fact a combination of Christensen's low-end disruption and new market disruption.

The process for designing tasks and tests is

• Draft materials to be originated and placed in the development folder.
• Independent competent person reviews, edits, amends and sends the amended work back to the originator.
• Originator and reviewer agree a final version.
• Third independent person tries out the final version feeding back any further comments.
• All assessment materials are therefore checked by at least three people.
• Feedback from Centres is received and acted upon.

Since the objective of the assessment is to judge competence of users against criteria related to operating a computer, reading and general language capability should not be a limiting factor. To this end for Entry level and Level 1 AB set tests and tasks that require reading questions and information, Centres can read questions to candidates. Every attempt should be made to support simple plain language.

Rosemary Lynch is a Registered General Nurse and has extensive management experience in NHS hospitals, private nursing homes and a technology company.

She was co-partner in setting up a company that won the Midlands Small Business of the Year Award achieving a £1m turnover in a year from a £20,000 directors loan and no further borrowing.

At The Learning Machine Ltd, She is responsible for financial management, health and safety and employee welfare including appraisal and staff development.

Ian Lynch is Chief Executive and Chief Assessor at The Learning Machine Ltd.

Ian has a first degree in mathematics and physics, a PGCE in Physics and Physical Education and a MSc in Education Management.

He has extensive teaching experience in 4 LAs and the independent sector. As an OFSTED Registered Inspector he had a chance to look at management and the curriculum in many schools.  He has set up and managed businesses in the private sector and provided consultancy to companies in both public and private sectors. He is an International Powerlifting Referee and former British Champion.

QCA ref: 3.1

Introduction and general principles

The Learning Machine intends to support languages other than English as fully as possible but is not in a position to do so immediately. In principle, the company will respond flexibly to any proposals for language support as it is the intention to reduce barriers to IT certification globally. It is a key advantage of the way Open Source communities work to be able to do language localisations freely. It is the reason why software such as OpenOffice.org is translated into more languages than any other similar product. Inevitably, the speed and number of languages supported by any Awarding Body for its particular products is determined to some extent by economics but by making the option to translate open, even when it is not economic for the Awarding Body, the local community can if it so wishes provide the leadership for translation. Furthermore, since the translation is realistically achievable by an individual, it is very unlikely that lack of a target language translation would prevent candidates who wanted certification to get it.

QCA ref: 3.1

There are currently two authorised moderators of TLM qualifications outside the UK. These are Inkululeko Technologies in South Africa and he National Center for Open Source Education in the USA. In both cases extensive training has been provided with visits to both countries. Further support is provided directly using internet communications and the web site. The prime priority is that quality assurance for any certificates bearing the UK regulators logos is fully up to the standards observed by The Learning Machine in the UK. At present all such certification is carried out in English. As the programme grows abroad, The Learning Machine will appoint regional moderators in the target country or countries who will be responsible for ensuring standards are consistent in that country and that quality qssurance is maintained in keeping with The Learning Machine policy for the UK. where the country requires languages other than English to be supported, the Languages Policy will be invoked.

QCA ref: 6.1

Purpose of qualifications

The key issue is the authentication of the qualification. A qualification provides information about the capability of an individual in a particular field. When an individual claims to have a qualification how can its authenticity be verified? There have been well-publicised cases of people teaching and even performing major surgery with no qualifications. The first issue is how easy it is to verify someone’s claim to be qualified.

Authenticating the certificate

The traditional method is for the candidate to declare that they possess the certificate (eg in a job application form) and then the interested parties can choose to verify whether or not this is the case. The first point of failure is when the individual claims to have the certificate and no-one checks the veracity of the claim. There is no means of dealing with this situation and it is the same for any qualification. The next potential point of failure is when the candidate produces a certificate that is not valid, a forgery that is accepted on face value and not checked. This is far more likely to succeed if the verification process is not free and immediate because verification then takes some effort. If a paper certificate is convincing it is very unlikely to be checked and with current inexpensive computer graphics tools forging a paper certificate is very easy to do. In the age of computers the record of the certificate in a database defines the certification, the paper copy of the certificate is simply a convenient means of representing the verifiable computer record without having to go to the computer to verify the contents of its database. The Internet changes this because of the ubiquitous access to computer terminals that can make secure access to databases anywhere in the world. Whether a paper or electronic certificate, if the certificate is checked back to the Awarding Body it is almost certain that the Awarding Body will check the name of the candidate and the certificate number against entries in its database. In effect the paper certificate is simply a representation of the information in the database. With modern communications technology it is straightforward to authenticate any certificate directly in the Awarding Body’s database over the Internet. If any certificate is not verifiable in this way there is a much greater chance that forgeries will be accepted and this is probably the most significant potential point of failure.

QCA ref: 5

Awarding and issuing certificates

When a student demonstrates that they have matched the criteria relevant to a particular award, the assessor registers the student and makes the appropriate award using the certification web site. To do this go to www.theINGOTs.org in a standards compliant web browser and click on certification login. Log in as an assessor using a valid username or E-mail address and your password. (If you forget your password E-mail your Account Manager). The On-line course for assessors provides detailed instructions about how to use the mark book and your Accouont Manager to register awards and print certificates.