Overview

• The original purpose was to provide qualifications in ICT that are of value to the learner, reduce costs for schools and colleges and reduce a lot of the tedious work associated with coursework assessment by using on-line systems. We are now using this proven model to extend to a wider range of qualifications.

• TLM works with its international partners and local centres to provide a service to their learners. Each Centre has a Principal Assessor and perhaps other assessors who are accredited to assess learning in particular fields and at particular levels. Assessors request awards based on evidence against assessment criteria on behalf of their learners.

• The bottom line is that to approve certification TLM needs to be sure that evidence is available that shows the learner meets the assessment criteria and that this is sufficient to provide confidence that the learning outcomes have been achieved for the particular unit being certificated.

• The facilities provided here are to support the process of presenting evidence and providing certification. We hope to make life easier for our assessors, reducing costs and streamlining bureaucracy while supporting the involvement of the candidate in the assessment and learning processes. If you have a better way of providing evidence, or evidence exists already in a different format we will accept it. Contact your Account Manager.

Assessing qualifications

1. Provide activities that will support the learning outcomes and provide evidence of attainment against the assessment criteria. (There are some example schemes of work here for Entry Level work, or here for the new Computing KS3 Program of Study).
2. Go to the Markbook login (make sure it is the Markbook Site)
3. Log in (Your username and password should be provided by your Principal Assessor or Account Manager at TLM)
4. Go to the assessment link
5. Find your teaching group and click the link to the qualification and unit.
6. Click on the unit you want to up date
7. Up date the marks.
8. If in doubt click the on-line help attached to the page.
9. When the mark book is up to date click the SAVE button. 
10. If all the data is entered for a particular learner and the status is "Ready for moderation" Click the Request Awards button. Your Account Manager will come back to you within 3 working days. If they do not, ring us as the e-mail message might have got lost (this should be rare)
11. When the Account Manager has approved the Award go to the School admin link and click the group tab
12. Click "Print Awards" for your group.  (You must use the official TLM certificate templates, though custom certificates with your school logo can be purchased separately)
13. Choose either a learner or award to print awards by learner or by award for several learners.
14. There is more detailed help in the How To section linked to the main Help item on the home page of the web site.

Getting started with providing evidence on-line

Make sure that your learners are registered in the Markbook for the units you are assessing by saving the group list in the Markbook assessment page for each unit. There is more detail about this here.

Make sure that learners have an account on the learning site and that they can list their units and the assessment criteria using the "My Units" Tab. Make sure that you have an account on both sites and that your e-mail address is the same in each of your accounts. If you set up your account on the Learning Site before you had an account on the Markbook site remember to save your profile page by clicking "My Account" in the right block then click the edit tab, then profile and then the save button. There is a detailed explanation of the process for setting up accounts here. There are videos showing how the evidence gathering works linked to the home page. You can contact us and we can talk you through any other problems.

At QCF Entry level and EQF level 1, learners will need considerable help in using the evidence system. At QCF level 1 and EQF level 2 they will still need help and guidance but should be progressing to becoming self-sufficient in at least some aspects. At QCF level 2 and EQF level 3 learners should be capable of mostly being self-sufficient as long as they have had practice and time to learn the systems. At higher levels, learners should be largely self-sufficient using the guidance and support systems here and in general documentation. This should be a broad indicator of the level of the learner that will complement the evidence they provide in particular subjects or occupational areas.

Providing evidence on-line

The aim should be to get all learners to progress to be able to collate and present their evidence on-line, largely self-sufficiently. This will add value to subject knowledge because they will understand how to support their own learning using technologies that are free or low cost. It will also free up teacher time to enable more time to be spent helping individuals and less time on tedious administration and marking.