BBC Education

Schools in England and Wales could soon be sending pupils’ coursework to exam boards electronically.

Currently exam centres have to hand in coursework on paper to be “moderated” by examiners.

Now examiners at Edexcel, OCR, AQA and WJEC have agreed to look at ways of assessing coursework online. Technically-savvy schools have long complained they are wasting time printing off coursework they have marked electronically.

Nathan Jenkins, head of technology at John Cabot City Technology College in Bristol, said his pupils presented their GCSE and A-level coursework to him electronically. “Pupils e-mail me their work – I mark everything online, so there are no paper copies,” said Mr Jenkins. “But when we send in work for moderation to the exam board, I have to print it all off on A3 paper, then package it all up for postage.” Moderation involves checking a sample of work to see that schools are awarding the correct grades. This term however, the school – which is taking part in a pre-trial for the AQA board – will send in pupils’ work on a CD-ROM.

A spokeswoman for the AQA board said the three English exam boards and the Welsh board, WJEC, were all looking at ways of moderating design and technology assignments electronically this year.