FAQs - Quality, Delivery and Assessment
Take a look at our FAQs, designed to support you with any queries you may have around quality, delivery and assessment.
The IQA should record the disagreement and take action before the decision is approved or certification is claimed.
This may require further evidence, reassessment, remarking, standardisation or wider sampling.
The IQA should also decide whether the problem is isolated or may affect other learners or assessors. If the issue could be systemic, the sample must be widened.
Serious or wide-reaching concerns must be escalated through the provider’s procedures and Open Awards must be advised where required.
No.
The IQA checks whether the assessor’s decision is valid and supported by the evidence. The IQA is not there to replace the assessor or routinely mark the learner’s work again.
The IQA should ask whether the correct criteria have been applied, the evidence is valid, authentic, current and sufficient, the assessment decision is accurate and consistent, feedback is appropriate and records are complete.
No.
IQA sampling should take place throughout delivery.
Interim sampling takes place while assessment is in progress and can identify problems with assessor judgement, evidence, feedback, mapping, record keeping or learner support early enough for the provider to take corrective action.
Summative sampling reviews completed assessment decisions, normally before certification or external quality assurance.
Using both gives greater assurance than waiting until all assessments are complete.
Examples include:
- New or unqualified assessors
- Assessors new to a qualification
- New qualifications, units or assessment methods
- Previous Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) or External Quality Assurance (EQA) actions
- Inconsistent assessment decisions
- High learner numbers
- Remote or subcontracted delivery
- Weak assessment records
- Unusual achievement patterns
- Borderline decisions
- Practical or high-stakes assessment
- Witness statements or RPL
- AI-sensitive evidence
- Video or audio evidence
- Professional discussions
- Reasonable adjustments
- Authenticity or plagiarism concerns
The sampling strategy should respond when risks change during delivery.
The plan should identify what will be sampled, why it will be sampled and when.
Across time, sampling should cover:
- Different learners and achievement levels
- Assessors
- Qualifications, units and components
- Assessment methods
- Evidence types
- Sites and delivery modes
- Reasonable adjustments and RPL
- Resubmissions
- Higher-risk and lower-risk activity
A useful approach is CAMERA: Candidates, Assessors, Methods, Evidence, Records and Assessment sites.
There is no standard percentage that is suitable for every provider.
Sampling should be risk-based and representative. The amount sampled should give the Internal Quality Assurers (IQA) confidence that assessment decisions across the programme can be trusted.
Higher-risk areas require increased sampling. Lower-risk areas must still be included over time but may justify less frequent or smaller samples.
A routine 100% check is normally inappropriate unless there is a clear reason for it, because IQA should not become a second marking process.
Yes. All qualifications must be approved for delivery prior to first teaching. Applications for qualification approval can be made through The Portal. Guidance on this process can be found in the documents and forms section under Open Awards Guidance Documents > Qualification Approval Guidance.
For high- and medium-risk qualifications, providers will have to provide additional evidence to support their application, details of which can be found in the specific Qualification Specification.
Providers must have a defined pre-verification process showing which assessments require pre-verification and who is authorised to carry it out.
Where an assessment is subject to pre-verification, it must not be issued to learners before it has been approved through the provider’s agreed process.
The Internal Quality Assurance (IQA) should check that the assessment is valid, fair, accessible, appropriately demanding, clearly mapped to the qualification requirements and capable of generating sufficient, authentic evidence.
Yes.
The IQA should confirm that the correct units have been selected and meet the Rules of Combination, assessment methods are appropriate, deadlines are manageable, learners are not overloaded and IQA activity has been built into the programme.
The plan should identify assessors, IQAs, issue and submission dates, IQA dates, resubmission opportunities where applicable and the units being delivered throughout the course.
No. Sampling learner evidence is only one part of internal quality assurance.
IQA covers the whole assessment system, including assessment planning, pre-verification of assessment activities, assessor competence, sampling assessment decisions, standardisation, observation of assessor practice where appropriate, feedback, record keeping, authenticity, risk management and preparation for external quality assurance.
Effective IQA should prevent problems as well as identify them.