Guidance

TQ Mark Grade Changes Outside of ROMMA: guide to the data submission process

Published 2 December 2021

Applies to England

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.

What data will be collected?

Mark and grade changes outside of reviews of marking and moderation and appeals data will be collected for all Technical Qualifications (TQs) within T levels for learners in England.

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.

How to submit your data

Your data should be submitted to us in CSV format. Please refer to the ‘Connecting to Ofqual’s data portal and uploading data’ document on our web page to help you submit your files to us. If you need to ask us about a data submission please do contact the Data Services team by emailing [email protected], please do not send your data files via email to Data Services or to any other Ofqual email address, or via Contact the Regulator in the Portal.

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 emailing [email protected]. 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

• Data should include mark or grade changes for all assessments taken within the reporting period

• All mark changes should be provided, regardless of whether or not is has resulted in a grade change

• If a mark or grade has more than one change for different reasons, this should be recorded as an additional row of data. Please report the cumulative change in the mark/grade fields for each row in these instances, rather than the individual changes

• Changes relating to special consideration should only be for requests made on or after results dates

• When a change is made to a candidate’s mark and/or grade which is later reversed, we would like to capture both changes. For the row indicating the change back to the original mark or grade we would expect the reason for change to be documented “reversal of a previous grade change”. If possible, we advise that AOs only report on the change and reversal of change if the initial change was issued to a centre

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 / Accepted values
ReportingDate	Date the file was due to be submitted to Ofqual regardless of when it was actually uploaded (this date will be made available by Ofqual)	1	^(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[/](0[1-9]|1[012])[/](20)\d\d $ or ^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: day (2 digits), forward slash, month (2 digits), forward slash, year (4 digits), or: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits)
AssessmentSeries	Assessment series data relates to, for example June 2023	2	^(June)([][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$	Full month name and year of Assessment series for example June 2023
AwardingOrganisation	Acronym of the awarding organisation	3	^.{1,100}$	A valid AO Acronym. 1 to 100 characters accepted Note: value must be consistent within the file
QualificationNumber	Unique identifier for the TQ as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications	4	^.{1,10}$	Valid Qualification Number. 1 to 10 characters accepted
ComponentCode	Unique identifier for the component which the assessment relates to (assigned by the awarding organisation)	5	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters
SubComponentType	TQ sub-component which the assessment falls under (Core Exam, Core Project, Occupational Specialism)	6	^(Core Exam|Core Project|Occupational Specialism)$	Accepted values: Core Exam, Core Project, Occupational Specialism Note: enter -2 if not applicable
AssessmentCode	Unique identifier for the assessment (assigned by the awarding organisation)	7	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters
ULN	Unique Learner Number	8	^.{0000000001,99999 99999}$	A numeric value between 0000000001 and 9999999999
UCI	Unique Candidate Identifier	9	^.{1,13}$	Alpha-numeric 13 characters Note: enter -2 if not available
UKPRN	UK Provider Reference Number	10	^.{10000000,99999999}$	A numeric value between 10000000 and 99999999
NCN	Centre ID – National Centre Number	11	^\d{1,5}$	Up to 5-digit integer accepted Note: enter -2 if not available
OriginalAssessmentRawMark	Original Assessment Raw Mark	12	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingAssessmentRawMark	Resulting Assessment Raw Mark	13	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
OriginalAssessmentUMSMark	Original Assessment UMS Mark	14	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingAssessmentUMSMark	Resulting Assessment UMS Mark	15	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
OriginalSubComponentRawMark	Original Sub-component Raw Mark	16	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingSubComponentRawMark	Resulting Sub-component Raw Mark	17	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
OriginalSubComponentUMSMark	Original Sub-component UMS Mark	18	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingSubComponentUMSMark	Resulting Sub-component UMS Mark	19	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
OriginalComponentRawMark	Original component Raw Mark	20	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingComponentRawMark	Resulting component Raw Mark	21	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
OriginalComponentUMSMark	Original component UMS Mark	22	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingComponentUMSMark	Resulting component UMS Mark	23	^\d{1,3}$	Number between 0 and 999 allowing decimals Note: enter -2 if not applicable
OriginalAssessmentGrade	Original Assessment Grade	24	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|Q|U|X|Distinction|Merit|Pass|-2)$	Accepted values: A* A B C D E U Distinction Merit Pass Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingAssessmentGrade	Resulting Assessment Grade	25	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|Q|U|X|Distinction|Merit|Pass|-2)$	Accepted values: A* A B C D E U Distinction Merit Pass Note: enter -2 if not applicable
OriginalSubComponentGrade	Original Sub-Component Grade	26	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|Q|U|X|Distinction|Merit|Pass|-2)$	Accepted values: A* A B C D E U Distinction Merit Pass Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingSubComponentGrade	Resulting Sub-Component Grade	27	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|Q|U|X|Distinction|Merit|Pass|-2)$	Accepted values: A* A B C D E U Distinction Merit Pass Note: enter -2 if not applicable
OriginalComponentGrade	Original Component Grade	28	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|Q|U|X|Distinction|Merit|Pass|-2)$	Accepted values: A* A B C D E U Distinction Merit Pass Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ResultingComponentGrade	Resulting Component Grade	29	^(A*|A|B|C|D|E|Q|U|X|Distinction|Merit|Pass|-2)$	Accepted values: A* A B C D E U Distinction Merit Pass Note: enter -2 if not applicable
ReasonForReconsideration	The reason for reconsideration of marks/grades	30	^(Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of marking|Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of moderation|Wider investigation as a result of an appeal|Wider investigation not as a result of a review of marking or moderation or appeal|Complaint|Special consideration|Malpractice|Other)$	Accepted values: Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of marking, Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of moderation, Wider investigation as a result of an appeal, Wider investigation not as a result of a review of marking or moderation or appeal, Complaint, Special consideration, Malpractice, Other
ReasonForMarkOrGradeChange	^(Work not seen or marked by original examiner|Error in totalling of marks by original examiner (e.g. examiner did not add up marks correctly)|Error in transferring marks from paper script to exam processing system (e.g. discrepancy between marks on script and marks on exam board system)|Error in inputting marks on online marking system by original examiner (e.g. mark incorrectly input)|Error in centre submitting marks (e.g. incorrect mark submitted for non-examination assessment)|Original marking/processing had incorrectly dealt with a candidate rubric error and/or answer in wrong answer space.|Original marker unable to read candidate response (e.g. illegible handwriting)|Application of special consideration during post-results |Missing script located (e.g. original script not marked)|Processing error (e.g. scanning or scaling or grading)|Auto-marking error (e.g. wrong answer key)|Outcome of malpractice investigation (e.g. mark change due to estimation of marks)|Marking – misapplication of levels based mark scheme|Marking – misapplication of points-based mark scheme|Marking – unusual candidate response (e.g. candidate response not covered by the mark scheme)|Moderation – misapplication of criteria by original moderator (e.g. error by original moderator)|Special cases (e.g. candidate sat wrong paper)|Reversal of a previous change)$	31	Accepted values as per pre-agreed list	Accepted values: Work not seen or marked by original examiner, Error in totalling of marks by original examiner (e.g. examiner did not add up marks correctly), Error in transferring marks from paper script to exam processing system (e.g. discrepancy between marks on script and marks on exam board system), Error in inputting marks on online marking system by original examiner (e.g. mark incorrectly input), Error in centre submitting marks (e.g. incorrect mark submitted for non-examination assessment), Original marking/processing had incorrectly dealt with a candidate rubric error and/or answer in wrong answer space., Original marker unable to read candidate response (e.g. illegible handwriting), Application of special consideration during post- results, Missing script located (e.g. original script not marked), Processing error (e.g. scanning or scaling or grading), Auto-marking error (e.g. wrong answer key), Outcome of malpractice investigation (e.g. mark change due to estimation of marks), Marking – misapplication of levels based mark scheme, Marking – misapplication of points-based mark scheme, Marking – unusual candidate response (e.g. candidate response not covered by the mark scheme), Moderation – misapplication of criteria by original moderator (e.g. error by original moderator), Special cases (e.g. candidate sat wrong paper), Reversal of a previous change
DateOfChange	Date when the mark or grade change was made	32	^(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[/](0[1-9]|1[012])[/](20)\d\d $ or ^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: day (2 digits), forward slash, month (2 digits), forward slash, year (4 digits), or: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits)

Annex A: accepted values for Reason For Reconsideration

• Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of marking
• Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of moderation
• Wider investigation as a result of an appeal
• Wider investigation not as a result of a review of marking or moderation or appeal
• Complaint
• Special consideration
• Malpractice
• Other

Annex B: accepted values for Reason For Mark Or Grade Change

• Work not seen or marked by original examiner
• Error in totalling of marks by original examiner (e.g. examiner did not add up marks correctly)
• Error in transferring marks from paper script to exam processing system (e.g. discrepancy between marks on script and marks on exam board system)
• Error in inputting marks on online marking system by original examiner (e.g. mark incorrectly input)
• Error in centre submitting marks (e.g. incorrect mark submitted for non-examination assessment)
• Original marking/processing had incorrectly dealt with a candidate rubric error and/or answer in wrong answer space.
• Original marker unable to read candidate response (e.g. illegible handwriting)
• Application of special consideration during post-results
• Missing script located (e.g. original script not marked)
• Processing error (e.g. scanning or scaling or grading)
• Auto-marking error (e.g. wrong answer key)
• Outcome of malpractice investigation (e.g. mark change due to estimation of marks)
• Marking – misapplication of levels based mark scheme
• Marking – misapplication of points-based mark scheme
• Marking – unusual candidate response (e.g. candidate response not covered by the mark scheme)
• Moderation – misapplication of criteria by original moderator (e.g. error by original moderator)
• Special cases (e.g. candidate sat wrong paper)
• Reversal of a previous change

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

Email [email protected]