Marker recruitment: guide to the submissions process
Published 13 November 2023
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2023
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/marker-recruitment-guide-to-the-submissions-process/marker-recruitment-guide-to-the-submissions-process
Introduction
In order to fulfil our regulatory and accreditation functions as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, we require awarding organisations to provide exams delivery data for regulated qualifications.
We collect the data on behalf of CCEA Regulation and share this data with them.
What data will be collected?
Marker recruitment data will be collected for General Qualifications.
When will data be collected?
Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is agreed and maintained by Ofqual’s data services team.
Updates to formats and guidance
This guidance document will be updated regularly. Any changes to procedure will be incorporated into the guidance document.
Uploaded data
Once files have been successfully uploaded, the data will be validated against a set of validation rules. These are detailed in the sections below. If validation is successful, the data is automatically transferred into our systems and you will receive email confirmation. If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it.
Amendments to data
Ofqual staff will not alter data once it has been submitted. If you find an error or omission after you’ve had a successful upload, please notify us by email. We need to reject the existing submission before you can upload a new file.
How your data will be used
This data will be used to undertake our regulatory activities and, where required, to produce Official Statistics to fulfil our responsibility as a government department.
General completion guidelines
Numeric values must not have any formatting.
Data should be submitted at component level.
File format
The file must be CSV format and the first row must be headers as displayed in the ‘Name’ column of the table below. The subsequent rows must have the values of the data to be reported which must match the format and validation rules below.
| Name | Description | Position | Validation Regular Expression | Description of Regular Expression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ExamSeries | Exam series data relates to, for example, June 2016 | 1 | ^(March|June)([ ][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$ |
Full month name of exam series and year |
| DateOfUpdate | Date the file was due to be submitted regardless of when it was actually uploaded. Format accepted 120 ODBC canonical yyyy-mm-dd. | 2 | ^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$ |
The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits) |
| AwardingOrganisation | Name of the awarding organisation | 3 | ^.{1,100}$ |
1 to 100 characters |
| QualificationLevel | Level of qualification for example, GCSE | 4 | ^(GCSE|AS|A level )$ |
One of the following list: GCSE, AS, A level |
| QualificationNumber | Qualification number, for example 123/1234/1 | 5 | ^.{1,10}$ |
A valid qualification number. 1 to 10 characters |
| SpecificationTitle | Specification title, also known as subject title | 6 | ^.{1,150}$ |
1 to 150 characters |
| SpecificationCode | Specification code, also known as Subject Award Code and Cash-in Code | 7 | ^.{1,7}$ |
1 to 7 charactersor -2 accepted if not applicable |
| ComponentCode | Component code as designated in the specification, otherwise known as assessment code or unit reference number for VTQs | 8 | ^.{1,10}$ |
1 to 10 charactersor -2 accepted if not applicable |
| Forecast Entry Size | Number of estimated entries for the given component code until entry is available, then -2 | 9 | ^\d{1,7}$ |
A numeric value between 0 and 9,999,999 or -2 accepted if not applicable |
| Actual Entry Size | Number of entries for the given component code (use: -2 when only forecast is available) | 10 | ^\d{1,7}$ |
A numeric value between 0 and 9,999,999 or -2 if not applicable |
| Contracts required | Total number of contracts for markers/examiners/team leaders/principles accepted. | 11 | ^\d{1,7}$ |
A numeric value between 0 and 9,999,999 |
| Contracts accepted | Qualification number, for example 123/1234/1 | 12 | ^\d{1,7}$ |
A numeric value between 0 and 9,999,999 |
Contacts
For all queries relating to the data collection process, amendments to data previously provided, or for general guidance. please contact:
Data services
Ofqual
2nd floor, 1 Friargate
Station Square
Coventry
CV1 2GN