Stages in the process

Stages in the process

Five stages are suggested here as essential procedures.

Stage 1: Planning and preparation

There are a number of steps in stage 1.

Background reading

Before starting the solution, teachers must read the Computer science guide, referring specifically to the “Internal assessment” section. These pages give essential information on the nature of the solution.

In addition, the following documents provide detailed information that teachers are strongly advised to read.

• Form 4/IAF : Following each examination session, schools receive subject-specific feedback on their internal assessment from the moderator. For group 4 subjects including computer science, these feedback forms are called Form 4/IAF.

• Subject report: At the end of each examination session schools receive a subject report. The internal assessment section of this report provides teachers with an overall review of internal assessments undertaken in all schools entered for the examination session and recommendations are made for improvement.

• The online curriculum centre: The OCC (http://occ.ibo.org) is a website that provides a computer science discussion forum where computer science teachers can exchange ideas on developing the internal assessment.

Other demands of the Diploma Programme

Teachers should consider all the demands of the Diploma Programme. These become particularly acute during year 2 when the majority of students complete coursework in other subjects and the extended essay.

It is recommended that students submit the first draft of the solution (criteria A and B) to teachers by the end of year 1. Alternatively, teachers could liaise with their IB coordinator and design a workable time frame that would ensure that their students have staggered deadlines for all internal assessment submissions.

Integrating the internal assessment into the course for SL and HL students

The internal assessment is common to both SL and HL students.

It is recommended that 30 hours of teaching time is devoted to the solution for both SL and HL students.

Internal assessment work should be incorporated into normal classroom activities and be clearly related to the study of one of the parts of the course. It is recommended that up to 5 of the 30 hours allocated to the solution are spent on the relevance of the design life cycle in the development of the product.

This will enable adequate supervision and reduce the pressure on students in out-of-school hours.

However, it is appreciated that some solutions may involve material from more than one option, such as a website that is based on the “Web science” option but also includes a database and programming that are not part of the option. In these cases teachers may need to allocate some of the 30 hours for covering topics not taught in the SL/HL core, HL extension or chosen option.

The development of practical skills should be regarded as an integral part of the teaching programme. In fact, practical skills provide a good reinforcement of theoretical work in class.

The selection of the option from the computer science syllabus provides students with an opportunity to develop their practical skills before embarking upon the internal assessment. It is likely that students will focus their internal assessment on the software skills addressed in the option chosen.

Suggested classroom activities

Some suggested activities that could be done during this time include:

• identifying possible scenarios where a solution may be required and providing opportunities for the class to discuss them

• exposing students to exemplar material (see assessed student work within this publication)

• exposing students to various tools and software

• presenting and discussing the nature of the internal assessment and the assessment criteria

• discussing the different types of software available and their relative strengths and weaknesses

• discussing the way the initial research into an issue related to computer science can be carried out

• providing opportunities for students to expand their ideas and to develop the scope of their work

• providing opportunities for students to develop one draft of their work through regular consultation with the teacher.

Choice of client and/or adviser

The choice of a suitable client and/or adviser is a major contributing factor to the final success of the solution. It is recommended that the client is either a teacher within the school, a friend or member of the family. If the student is the client, similar considerations should be undertaken in choosing the adviser. Further information is available in the “Choice of topic” section of the Computer science guide.

Role of the adviser

The adviser should provide guidance to the student as suggested below.

• Advise on the scope and feasibility of the solution to ensure that a non-trivial solution is developed.

• Discuss possible success criteria with the student.

• Advise during the development of the product.

• Confirm whether the success criteria have been met.

Selecting a topic for the solution

It is important that students, with the teacher’s guidance, choose an issue that:

• engages their interest

• meets the criteria for assessment

• involves a client and/or adviser who is accessible and can provide feedback within the required time frame

• is realistic in terms of resources, their technical ability and the time frame for completion.

Examples of scenarios from within the school could include the following.

• The computer science student (client) wishes to develop further (improve an existing product) his website, which provides an online forum for the development of web pages using PHP. A possible solution is to develop additional web pages with the network manager acting as an adviser.

• A computer science student has been asked by the economics teacher (client) to develop a spreadsheet (original product) that is able to process a set of examination results to see if the mistakes in the questions have had a significant effect on the students’ marks.

• A computer science student has been asked by the geography teacher (client) to develop a modelling package (new product) to determine whether four colours are sufficient to colour the states in any given country.

Examples of scenarios from outside of the school could include:

• A manager of a local football team (client) requires a method of keeping accurate records of players’ details, attendance at training sessions and performance throughout the season (problem). A possible solution is to develop a bespoke relational database.

Stage 2: Gathering information for the solution

Meeting with the client and/or adviser

The student should ensure that the first, and any subsequent, meetings with the client and/or adviser are in an environment that is conducive to gathering the relevant information. The meetings should be scheduled at mutually convenient times.

Method(s) of information collection

Students may use a range of methods to gather information from the client and/or adviser. It must be remembered that evidence of the consultation must be included in the final submission of the solution.

Additional information may need to be collected in the development of the solution. For example, this may relate to hardware, software or techniques required to develop the solution.

Stage 3: Preparing to develop the solution

Follow-up work in class should be used to ensure students have an opportunity to check:

• they have the hardware, software and practical skills to develop the product

• they have sufficient feedback and/or data from their client/adviser to develop the product

• the timeline proposed is realistic

• the preliminary designs indicate the scope and nature of the product are appropriate.

Stage 4: Creating the solution

There are a number of steps in stage 4.

The information within this section should be read in conjunction with the following:

• “Guidance for the development of the internal assessment” in this publication

• the section on “Development of the solution” in the guide.

Using the criteria

It is the teacher’s role to inform the student fully of the internal assessment requirements and the assessment criteria, and it is the student’s responsibility to fulfill these requirements. Teachers should give all students a copy of the assessment criteria. This helps when students are developing the product and associated documentation because the criteria are a guide to the way marks are allocated.

Teachers should advise students to follow closely all five assessment criteria (A–E).

Individual work and authenticity

The completion of the solution must be entirely the work of the individual student. Students should not be discouraged from showing individuality when completing the solution.

Students should be given a strict timetable and internal deadline for the submission of the rough draft of the solution; this should include access to the product and associated documentation.

Supervision by the teacher should be on an individual basis and the rough draft checked once only. Repeated submission, redrafting and remarking of the solution is not permitted. Where there is evidence of collaboration and where there are strong similarities in the appearance of the different solutions, the work should not be accepted in rough draft. The final draft should only be accepted if the teacher is convinced of its authenticity.

If teachers suspect that the student’s work is not individual or authentic and they have reasonable evidence, they should make the student rewrite his or her written report. If time does not permit this, teachers must not sign Form 4/ICCSCS (described in stage 5) and must submit the reasons for their suspicion under the heading “Relevant information”.

Word limit

Students and teachers must ensure that the word limit is not exceeded. If a student does exceed the word limit of 2,000 words, the moderators are instructed not to read beyond this point. This means students could potentially lose marks from the last sections of the solution, such as in criteria C and E (potentially worth 18 marks). Regulations regarding the use of annotations and tables should be closely followed.

During the writing of the documentation students should bear in mind the suggested word length for each section provided in this publication. Students should include the total number of words on the coversheet.

See the table in the section “Word count and format”.

Sources

Students must acknowledge all of the secondary sources they have used in the solution in criterion C. These can include websites and any other published material. Students who fail to cite any one of the sources they have used will lose some of the marks available in criterion C.

If students do not reference their work, they could be accused of malpractice.

Sources should be referred to in the text and a standard referencing format (title, author and date) should be used for bibliographies and footnotes. Students should ensure that their method of referencing is consistent throughout, that all relevant information is provided and that their system enables the reader to locate their original sources.

Guidance on how to reference is provided in the section “Information sources for the internal assessment”.

Format of documentation

It is strongly recommended that:

• the documentation is submitted in a commonly used format such as pdf or html

• the video is submitted in a commonly used format such as avi or mov.

Use of appendices

Appendices may be included and could provide the following information.

• Evidence of interactions between the student and the client and/or adviser in criteria A and E.

• Screenshots of class and folder structures if this cannot be determined from either the product or the documentation.

• Additional evidence of the product functioning when this cannot be seen from the version sent for moderation, for example a short video of an interactive website or rendering of an image or object in software that is not available to the moderator.

It should be noted that any material in an appendix must be clearly referenced in the main body of text. Moderators will not be expected to search the appendix to locate material nor will marks be awarded for material there.

Stage 5: Completion and submission

There are a number of steps in stage 5.

Marking and comments

Teachers should mark the solution for each student using criteria A–E as specified in the Computer science guide. The teacher-generated marks are then externally moderated. This external moderation may change teacher-generated marks.

Teachers are advised to annotate the solution with brief comments showing where the student’s work demonstrates a particular skill that is worthy of credit or has a serious omission or error. These comments are also extremely helpful to the moderator in understanding the rationale behind the teacher’s marking.

Annotations should be in a method that clearly indicates that they are by the teacher, using methods such as comment boxes, highlighted text (with some explanation of the exact method) or an additional linked document.

Teacher marking and moderation

The purpose of moderation is to confirm the marks awarded by the teacher with respect to a sample of students’ work. However, in some cases the marks given by the teacher are raised or reduced by the external moderator. The final mark given by the moderator to each of the students represented in the sample will affect the marks received by the rest of the class.

Atypical internal assessments may have been completed at a different time, may be unfinished, may be highly unusual, may be different to that produced by the rest of the class, may have had significant extra assistance given by the teacher, or the teacher may have experienced particular difficulty in assessing the work. Full details of atypical work are given in the Handbook of procedures for the Diploma Programme in the section on internal assessment, which is available to the Diploma Programme coordinator in each school and on the OCC for teachers. Teachers must assess atypical work using the computer science internal assessment criteria and the same standards applied to the rest of the class. Teachers should indicate that this work is atypical and state the nature of the problem.

Correct submission procedures

The Diploma Programme coordinator in each school is responsible for following the correct procedures in submitting the sample solution(s) to moderators and predicted marks to the IB. Further information is found in the Handbook of procedures for the Diploma Programme.

Teachers should note that each solution must be accompanied by the following form.

• Form 4/ICCSCS—a coversheet for the internal assessment for each student

Each solution should include this coversheet with details of the student’s name and candidiate number along with the marks awarded. The teacher and the student must sign this form.

The sample of solutions selected to be sent for moderation must be accompanied by this summary sheet. This provides the total marks for each solution in the sample together with additional details about the work undertaken. The teacher must sign this form.

The entry of marks on these forms must be in line with the procedures in the Handbook of procedures for the Diploma Programme.

The number of internal assessments selected as a sample to be sent to the moderator will depend on the size of the group. Samples are automatically selected for each school. The samples should arrive with the moderators by 20 April for May examinations and by 20 October for November examinations. Predicted marks should be sent to the IB by 10 April for May examinations or 10 October for November examinations. In schools where more than one teacher assesses the work, internal moderation should take place before marks are submitted.

If the automatic selection of the student includes an atypical internal assessment, supplement the moderation sample with another more typical internal assessment, at or as close to the same mark as the atypical internal assessment. The atypical work should still be included in the sample to the moderator with a note of explanation on the form provided.

Teachers are advised that either they or the students should make a copy of the internal assessment before it is sent for moderation as a contingency measure and for future reference. After the process of moderation, the coursework is kept for several months by the moderator and then disposed of or deleted.