(A review of the IV Manager & the FrameUp Collection)

Pixels to paper - Planning and Verification

As with so many centres with various schemes, different assessment strategies and an abundant increase in different funding streams it has become more important than ever before to have systems in place to monitor performance at any given level. Myerscough College took the view back in 2006, prior to an anticipated Ofsted inspection, that our systems needed to be improved to cope with this increased demand not only for data but to monitor the quality of provision. We needed to come away from having so many databases and to look for one system that could manage all the information but with the potential for various access rights for key people to view the same information.

The centre invested in a work-based MIS system called FrameUp, a management information system at the push of a button. A system where you could get fast answers to so many questions like 'Which learners are failing to make progress' and 'what are our timely achievements in the last X months for any given vocational area'. Frame-up did it all and within seconds. Managers could now manage information for action with live data from the 'coal face', co-ordinators could action specific weak areas and assessors actually knew at the click of a button how their learners were progressing down to a percentage point. On using the system further it became quite apparent that crucial employer information on learners' progress could be reported on and emailed directly to them in PDF format much to the acceptance of the employer. Long term planning, a previous weakness, was instantly addressed by the system that comes complete with a traffic light indicator to alert a dedicated support team we had in place, that could then action any required support plan.We now have thirty work-based assessors across sixteen different schemes and a widegeographic area using this system. They can update each learner's progress at any point or actually with the learner and employer as the system is installed on their laptops. New data can then be synchronised with the main centre via the VPN (Virtual private network) ~ from home without the assessor needing to visit the centre. Individual learning plans are also electronic and any adjustments made to any section of the programme automatically updates the ILP, making a massive saving in assessor time.

All sounds good so far, so what are the disadvantages? Well any system is as good as the data that is inputted into it and FrameUp is no exception and it became quite apparent that the quality of such a system would depend largely on the verification of its content. This gave the centre impetus to work with Frame-up's designers to formulate an IV module that would link to the main Frame-up database, completing the loop with a quality stamp. After all verification is not just about sampling portfolios, it's about quality assuring the entire learning programme from induction to certification. When the IV module is launched in the summer (2008) it will create a system in which the IV can view all aspects of the learning programme besides the obvious attributes of being able to calculate sampling plans, send information to external verifiers at the push of a button and provide electronic sampling reports and subsequent archive facilities. Combined with the centre's new streamlined portfolios I firmly believe we are equipped with good weapons of choice to be I proactive to any given situation and allow managers, at last, to manage information and support their assessment and verification teams.

Paul McGrail MIVA ,Quality Assurance Manager, Myerscough College


(Reprinted from the Newsletter of the IVA - Independent Verifiers & Assessors)