In developing a talk on The New Regulatory Arena for the AO Forum on 24th May it was useful to take stock of how far vocational qualifications (NVQs, VRQs and QCF) had progressed over the previous five years. Read more 
The New Regulatory Arena
Building the skills to build the evidence-base
The second workshop in the LIS Coalition’s DREaM project (Developing Research Excellence and Methods) was held at the British Library on 30th January 2012. It is part of a series of three on research methodologies delivered by leading researchers and academics and attended by around 30 research-active library and information service (LIS) professionals.
The day started with a thought-provoking session on “User involvement in research: making sense of a radical new development (action research)” Read more
Challenges for the Qualifications Sector in 2012
There’s been high drama recently featuring the big five awarding organisations and the services they offer. Ofqual is now faced with the challenge of whether to outlaw the AO seminars for teachers which caused all the problems. Also there’s the discussion on whether to levy a fine on an AO if – or when – things go badly wrong and disadvantage candidates. A challenge for regulation is that it has become more difficult to regulate successfully now major international and commercial organisations play a major role Read more
