Managing the examination material

After marking, the next stop on a script’s journey is the IB curriculum and assessment centre (IBCA). Each script is first booked in using a bar-coding system before it is clerically checked to identify any errors made in the addition and transfer of marks. This feature of quality assurance is an exercise of military proportions employing over 250 temporary staff who search for clerical errors among nearly half a million scripts as well as other items of examination material.

The clerical checking of examination material is only one of many tasks for which this small army of temporary staff is responsible. Accurate filing is essential because individual scripts and batches of scripts are required on a regular basis for grade award meetings, workshop material and the enquiry upon results service. The major activity during June and December is to provide support for the grade award meetings held at IBCA, which involves selecting and then delivering scripts to each of the meetings. The management of examination material is a year-round activity with one session quickly merging into another.