The Personal Learning Record is intended to empower the learner
to view and review their learning and support them in making the
right learning choices in the context of the QCF. The learner will
be able to view all of their QCF achievement data, on-line, and in
one place. Used as part of robust and professional information and
advice, the Personal Learning Record will also offer the option of
supporting learners to identify potential future QCF learning
episodes through Rules of Combination (RoC), Routes to Achievement
(RtA) using information sourced from the regulators, as well as
opportunities to transfer achievement.
QCF achievement data will be collected directly from awarding
organisations and held on the Personal Learning Record, with
awarding organisations continuing to hold and own authoritative
achievement data. Providers and advisers will also support the
learner to access and interpret their QCF achievement data via the
Personal Learning Record, and will play a critical role in
assigning and verifying learners' Unique Learner Numbers
(ULNs).
The Skills Funding Agency will work with awarding organisations
to verify and agree how QCF achievement data on the Personal
Learning Record will be accessed. Furthermore, as with all its
handling of data, the Skills Funding Agency will rigorously comply
with Data Protection laws. The Skills Funding Agency is responsible
for the security of the system and for ensuring the protection of
the data against corruption within the Personal Learning
Record.
Learners control access to their Personal Learning Record but
cannot change the data (although they can challenge the data for
accuracy). Awarding organisations will provide the definitive and
authoritative source of evidence of achievement. QCF achievement
data will be accurate, and appropriate checks and balances will be
put in place as part of operating agreements and joint ways of
working, to ensure that the data on the Personal Learning Record is
consistent with that held by the awarding organisation.
The changes to the Personal Learning Record to support the
additional services around credit accumulation and transfer for the
QCF are being delivered in two phases:
- Phase one: Transition Service (April 2009 - September
2010)
- Phase two: full integration with the Personal Learning Record
(September 2010 onwards).
Phase One: Transition Service
This phase, focuses on providing an optional service for
awarding organisations to ensure that there are processes and
technology in place to enable the submission of QCF achievement
data to the Personal Learning Record from September 2010. Where
appropriate, this first phase is also supporting credit
accumulation. The Transition Service however is not available
through the Personal Learning Record.
A number of improvements have been made to facilitate
achievement data transfer between awarding organisations and the
Transition Service Learning Record based on feedback to date. Based
on this feedback, Release 3 of the Transition Service went live in
September 2009, offering the enhanced functionality around Learner
Records Service/ULN validation and additional reporting capability.
Also, real achievement data from participating awarding
organisations has been submitted to test the full functionality of
the live system.
The QCF Transition Service Release 3 is the last planned release
before the changes are made to the Personal Learning Record
in October 2010 to support the additional services around
credit accumulation and transfer for QCF. Awarding organisations
can join the Transition Service on a voluntary basis. Those
providers who work with awarding organisations using the Personal
Learning Record can use the Transition Service to see their
learners' achievement during this phase and they will be able to
support learners to view their achievement data.
Phase Two: full integration with the Personal Learning
Record
From September 2010, the changes implemented to the Personal
Learning Record will provide enhanced QCF functionality and
information for learners, as well as other organisations learners
choose to give access to their information. The Skills Funding
Agency will provide guidance prior to October 2010 to support
stakeholders to use this enhanced functionality, with the changes
focusing on the additional functions required to facilitate credit
transfer where learners choose to use this. The intention is that
the additional functionality will include:
- ability for learners to have direct access to their QCF
achievement data and enable them to review progress towards a
particular qualification.
- ability for learners to manage access to their QCF
achievement data by learning providers, careers advisers, awarding
organisations, employers and other approved third parties,
through a permissions model consistent with a best practice data
sharing framework
- ability for learners, providers, as well as awarding
organisations that choose to use this service, to submit Rules of
Combination (RoC) queries, viewing the combination of credits
required for a particular QCF qualification to be awarded
- ability to view potential future learning pathways based on
what learners have already achieved by running a Routes to
Achievement (RtA) query and to consider these in the context of
support from robust and professional information and advice. This
is an optional function of the Personal Learning Record, enabling
learners (or other third party granted delegated access) to explore
the ways in which they could transfer their credit achievements
towards obtaining a QCF qualification
- availability of a streamlined Credit Accumulation and Transfer
(CAT) functionality for all vocational qualifications within the
QCF for awarding organisations that choose to use this service
- additional functionality enabling learners in Wales to be able
to access a Welsh language version
- ability for awarding organisations to provide a wider
range of achievement data, not limited to QCF, if they wish to do
so.
