Cambridge National in Creative iMedia J834: feedback from January 2023 moderation for units R094 to R099

Neil Hateley, Subject Advisor for Creative iMedia, IT and Computer Science

Our Cambridge National in Creative iMedia (J834) was live for first teaching from September 2022. As our NEAs are live for both the January and June series each year, we will only produce a moderators’ report in June. This blog therefore gives you some hints and tips for your next moderation window.

January 2023 was the first moderation series for the new qualification for all units. We received a significant number of entries for the mandatory unit, R094, but the entry for the optional units was very small this time around. This was expected as centres have focused on completing the compulsory unit first. As there was a lower number of entries than normal, this allowed us to make use of very experienced moderators.

In the summer there will be a bigger team of moderators – if you would like to be part of the team, we regularly look to increase our pool and you can find information on current vacancies on our dedicated webpage. Being a moderator is one of the best ways to gain an insight into our assessment and build confidence in supporting your students as they learn.

The senior moderation team reported that most centres submitted work that was complete and of a good standard. Very few centres had submitted work which was partly completed, for example where a task or tasks had been entirely omitted by the whole cohort.

Mandatory unit R094: Visual identify and digital graphics

For R094, it was good to see that many centres had prepared their students well, although it was apparent that a small number of centres appear to have taught and assessed the unit as if it was R082. This was most evident where centres and their students had failed to appreciate the difference between a visual identity and the final product.

Most of the work produced by students was broadly in line with expectations for the unit. Very few centres required adjustments to bring their marks within nationally defined standards.

A further observation by the team was that lower-ability students seemed to be slightly advantaged by the removal of the LO1 equivalent research task within R094. Previously students tended to struggle with this task, whilst the more practical nature of the tasks for R094 seems to provide weaker students with a greater proportion of the marks.

The most significant challenge faced by students seemed to be in their justification of their design choices in the first task of R094. This seemed to provide a significant problem for less able students.

R094 provided the largest proportion of entries in the January 2023 series.Candidates’ performance was broadly in line with the expectations for this unit when compared to the legacy R082 unit and more broadly by extrapolating KS2 data for matched candidates.

Optional units R095: Characters and comics and R097: Interactive digital media

For the optional units it appeared that some students were less well-prepared for the assessments. Although the content is similar or familiar to the legacy units, the output of the assessments is different to the nature of evidence produced for the legacy specification.

The moderation team found that work was not always in line with expectations and, as such, some students were less likely to meet the requirements of the marking criteria. It is expected that as teachers become more familiar with what is required, work produced will be more in line with expectations.

The candidate style work for R095, R097 and all the optional units is now available in time for the May series and it is worth looking at this before starting to mark your students’ work.

Tips for entering work for moderation

The moderation team provided some specific areas of feedback which may be helpful for centres and students in future series:

For the process and administration of the moderation

1. The unit recording sheets (URS) for the candidates must be in the administration section of the repository and submitted for assessment, and not solely within the candidate work.
2. When collating and labelling work, candidate numbers should be used primarily, not just candidate names. This is described in Appendix A of the specification under the title structure for evidence.
3. Digital submissions should be provided via Submit for Assessment or Repository. There should be no CD or paper submissions for the J834 specification. This is detailed in section 6.5.1 of the specification.
4. If work is password protected, centres should email to OCR at NEApasswords@ocr.org.uk with the centre number, the component number and the password. This is detailed in the “sending removable data” section of our Non-exam assessment page for Cambridge Nationals.
5. It significantly aids the process of moderation if centres provide comments on the URS for each candidate, showing which page evidence can be found on and appropriate justification of why the marks were awarded.

Evidencing work in candidate’s portfolios

1. For R094, task 1, the advice section which follows the task includes the statement “You should show how your digital graphics were made”. It would be prudent for teachers to highlight this guidance in the task booklet within their teaching as in general terms this could have been better evidenced. One way to do this is by using before, during and after screenshots.
2. Teachers should be aware that the evidencing requirements of the legacy specification are not a good fit for the revised specification marking criteria.
3. Students need to be taught that a visual identity is not the same as a logo; there is a broader set of concepts which should be considered.
4. Students need to provide a file within their submission containing the visual identity. Unfortunately this was missing from a number of students’ work.
5. Exporting final products holds marks but marks can also be supported for creation if the candidate has not exported. Centres can use the URS to point at evidence to support this.
6. For R097, a significant number of students and centres have missed the preparation of multimedia components in this series. It is much better practice to save and edit video assets to include within the interactive digital media product, than to externally link or embed a complete externally hosted video asset.
7. Students who produce products using online applications must download the work and centres need to send standalone products. Moderators have been instructed not to follow links to online documents such as websites or apps.

Stay connected

If you have any questions, you can email us at support@ocr.org.uk, call us on 01223 553998 or tweet us @OCR_ICT. You can also sign up to subject updates and receive information about resources and support.

About the author

Neil Hately joined OCR as an IT subject advisor in 2020 after 17 years teaching vocational courses in a variety of FE establishments. He has a degree in Applied Physics from Hull University, and qualifications in Business Computing from The University of Northampton. Outside work, Neil is a keen gardener and beekeeper, he has a young family and various pets most of which he looks after on behalf of his daughter. One day he may even get around to getting his motorbike out of the shed again.