This is the first time I have been moved to joining a forum and opening up a debate, but I need to discuss this with interested parties and I hope I can find them here.
I am an ICT teacher in the UK and am bashing my head against a brick wall. Edexcel (one of the major UK exam boards) refuse to accept work which is in Open Document Source format. A chunk of an A* student’s work, hours of work, was given 0 marks because it was saved in .ODS format and not .XLS. The moderator could not “open” the file.
Given that back in 2008 BECTA (the former British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, which went into liquidation in April 2011), referred an interoperability complaint against Microsoft to the European Commission (EC) stating “Becta believes that impediments to interoperability limit choice. In the context of the education system this can result in higher prices and a range of other unsatisfactory effects which have a negative impact on wider policy initiatives, including improving educational outcomes, facilitating home school links and addressing the digital divide.” and that more recently, July 2014, the UK government declared that all official office suites must support Open Document Format (ODF), it seems ludicrous that Edexcel are taking this stance.
Numerous emails result in the same political answers, “Learners who produce work towards our IT/Computing qualifications are free to use any approach that allows them to create suitable digital products and applications. In order to award marks we have to ensure this work is accessible by our moderators. Moderators will also expect digital products and applications to be provided in a suitable format that ensures these products are effective. With this in mind, end product must be available in a format that is part of the moderators toolkit for each qualification. Work produced by learners that is not in a format from the moderators toolkit will not attract marks”.
Any thoughts – are Edexcel not an an “official suite”?
