Reflections on 25 Years of the SCQF #scqf25years

In 2001, I was leading a range of sector-wide projects across Scottish Further Education for the Scottish Further Education Unit (SFEU). Across colleges, there was a  buzz surrounding the arrival of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF). For those of us working on the ground, news of a unified national framework was warmly welcomed.

Before joining SFEU, I had spent 15 years as a Course Team Leader in the college sector. My colleagues and I hit the same wall: a system of fragmented, siloed qualifications that created friction for learners trying to progress. We watched capable students pass college units linked to occupational standards with distinction, only to be told by universities or by professional bodies that their learning "didn't count" or that they had to start from scratch. The lack of proper, systemic recognition was frustrating and unfair. It wasn't just administrative red tape; it was actively hampering human potential. 

One year we lost an established articulation route simply as the academic course team leader who was the gatekeeper at a local university changed and their successor decided to block the articulation pathway. It could be a real lottery. 

So, when the SCQF Arrived in 2001 promising a single, common language for all learning built on the sensible view  that a unit of effort in a college held equal weight to one in a university it felt like a long-overdue revolution.

By 2003, my perspective shifted from curriculum support to national delivery when I moved to the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), looking after half of all vocational awards in Scotland. The nascent SCQF team were along the corridor from me. 

Sitting at the SQA during those formative years was exhilarating we were doing the heavy lifting to make the SCQF work. We undertook the massive task of updating, reviewing, leveling, and credit-rating thousands of vocational awards, Higher National Certificates (HNCs), Higher National Diplomas (HNDs), and SVQs. We were creating the architecture for true "parity of esteem."

Since then, I have worked closely with the SCQF team members over the years (always a pleasure), spent time on the board of SCQF partnership and worked as an auditor for credit and levellng organisations.  

Looking back now, over two decades later, I ask myself: Did the SCQF live up to the promise we felt in 2001?

The answer is a nuanced yes, but.

Where it succeeded:

The SCQF created a transparent, world-leading infrastructure. It allowed colleges to build direct articulation routes into modern universities, saving thousands of students time and money. It gave non-traditional learners a way to see their worth, and it allows workplace learning to be formally valued alongside traditional academic degrees. It's been great to see professional bodies, community learning and other public bodies coming on board. 

 Where the battle continues:

The friction I fought as a Course Team Leader in the 1990s hasn't  disappeared. While the framework provided the language for seamless progression, it couldn't forcibly dismantle institutional culture. We still see universities guarding their gates, forcing HND graduates to repeat learning levels, and public perception clinging to traditional school-exam "gold standards."  

The funding system I think is the only lever left and that should be used very bluntly, to change some behaviours here. Public money should mean national standards. 

It's been a bumpy ride, during College restructuring a lot of experienced credit and levellers left the sector, though capacity is building up again. Universities tend to only credit and level their own provision, and there can still be some confusion in the system around the value of credit and levelling an award and or an awarding body seeking accreditation from the SQA. 

In 2001, we really hoped the SCQF would be a silver bullet. Today, I see it as an essential foundation. It didn't instantly solve every barrier to progression, but it gave us the blueprint to keep fighting for a fairer, more open education system in Scotland. #OpenScot  

In the School sector many of the benefits have still to be cultivated where -  academic subjects, vocational learning, and personal achievements could form an SCQF-levelled profile. We could  eliminate the high-stakes exam treadmill in favor of a balanced, credit-based portrait of a young person’s capabilitities - but that still seems out of reach. 

It is a key part of the Scottish educational landscape that needs to be better understood by everyone across the system. It is still the envy of many global education systems.  

Collectively we can all do more to make the SCQF Framework work for all. 

Happy Birthday SCQF and team members past and present. 

Generative AI and the Changing Nature of Assessment for DataLab Education Community

 

I enjoyed co presenting with Daire Maria Ni Uanachain . Daire's presentation and recording of session is now available on the Data Lab Education  Community Page 

If you are not a member of this community you should join. ( probably most relevant to folks in Scotland)   My own presentation is at foot of this blog post and I think complemented Daire's approach. 

I don't think we are at an inflection point yet. Changes to learning and assessment should have arrived when the internet and search engines became ubiquitous. 

Generative AI poses less of a threat to vocational training than to traditional academic sectors because vocational education relies on authentic assessment where learners must physically demonstrate practical capabilities rather than simply writing essays for these areas.  Digital evidence capture, such as video recording practical assessments (e.g. solar panel installation or working at height), work really well for verification and quality sampling.  Alternative assessments work in every other subject area too.   

To be clear, educational AI isn't about experimental frontier systems, it's about the accessible, everyday tools already at our students' fingertips. Keeping our focus on practical applications helps demystify the technology and prevents unnecessary anxiety from stalling essential digital skills development  (though the danger of armageddon will be this year's excuse for avoidance of any digital skills development) 

The truth is  getting teaching staff to change assessments rather than rely on 'AI Detection Engines' which don't work,  is massively challenging. Bad practice is deeply entrenched. We still have academic staff who ask generations of students the same questions and that should have changed long before the advent of AI.

Overcoming resistance to change is all about having the right governance, time and support in place. 

Unlocking the potential of these tools locally hinges on closer collaboration between IT departments,  academic and support staff. Building trust and dialogue between teams ensures we fully leverage the native AI features already sitting in our VLEs (like Canvas) and the enterprise platforms Microsoft or Google accounts. 

This is essential to prevent growth of shadow IT etc.   

There is useful support from Qualifications Scotland and a host of other sources. I've listed some current ones in slide deck. 

Hot of the press Glasgow Universities Toolkit for Reflecting on the Use of Digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technologies in Learning and Teaching is included on this list. 

Launch of Toolkit for reflecting on the use of Digital and AI Technologies in Learning and Teaching

Last Monday, before heading up to Dundee University to move my son into student halls, I had the opportunity to attend the launch of an excellent new resource at the University of Glasgow.

The team at the School of Education has developed the Toolkit for Reflecting on the Use of Digital and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technologies in Learning and Teaching. Rather than promoting specific tools or offering a rigid compliance checklist, the toolkit encourages structured reflection, professional dialogue, and active enquiry through self-assessment activities, real-world case studies, and guided reflective frameworks. It supports reflection across various dimensions of technology use and can be used individually or collaboratively, with the flexibility to adapt to different educational settings.

It is structured into four parts that move from examining personal pedagogical assumptions to analyzing mock case studies and planning future lessons. By utilising established academic frameworks like SAMR, TPACK, and the Conversational Framework, the resource encourages a shift from mere technology adoption to evidence-informed reflection. 

The materials also highlight ethical considerations, such as data privacy and accessibility, ensuring that tools serve human-centered learning goals.

Ultimately, the toolkit provides a staged scaffold for practitioner enquiry, helping teachers sustain a reflective digital practice as technology evolves.

It was good to meet some Education Scotland colleagues along at the launch and hear that they had been supportive in the development of this resource. 

The toolkit has several clear strengths:

• Sensible progression: It thoughtfully steps staff through selecting suitable technology based on actual learning needs, asking grounded questions about tech and AI along the way.

• Solid pedagogical focus: It grounds learning design effectively, with a particularly useful focus on the ABC model.

• Open access: It is published as an Open Educational Resource (OER), making it widely accessible. #OpenScot 

The overall approach is remarkably sound, and it is worth planning to use some of the slides and exercises with staff to help shape their approach to learning technology and AI. That said, to make the absolute most of it in practice, there are a few tweaks I'd make:

• Streamlining the activities: I’d likely cut down on some of the exercises. A few sections feel slightly wordy, and it can take a bit long to reach the practical next steps of selecting the right technology.

• Localising to institutional context: In an institutional setting, you need to explicitly point staff toward the specific tools supported by their institution. The toolkit omits this local layer to remain universally applicable, so I’d add that context back in.

• Critiquing misuse: It also presents a good opportunity to explore what might be missing, or address where educational technology and AI are being used inappropriately. Example I often use - a poor set of engineering lecturers being driven to distraction by an edtech trying to get them to adopt Powtoons of cuddily toys with powertools. 

• Expanding case study scope: The team is currently expanding the case studies at the back. Right now, they are heavily focused on primary schools, which opens up a great opportunity for colleges and HE institutions to collaborate with the university to develop further sector-specific examples.

Ultimately, I’d take the core slides and checklists and adapt them to fit a specific institutional context. Overall, the resources in this pack are a valuable addition to the toolkit of both Learning Technology teams and staff developer leads.

There are a lot of resources appearing in this space. (digital learning support with a focus on AI)  I didn't ask but was not sure where this resource fitted along side Glasgow University's lead on the Centre for Teaching Excellence and or work around digital learning appearing from the digital hub at Edinburgh University. 

Event was timely as I was doing a sector wide presentation later in the week with an AI focus and I was able to include this resource in references. 

There was a plug too for an 'International Symposium' on AI in summer 2027 

If you work in Learning Technology or a Learning and Teaching Academy worth downloading the PDF - and with proper attribution for orginal underpinning work perhaps running your own local AI model to repurpose some of the slides and resources in this pack.  My preferred model for this at moment is giving Notebook LM the PDF and asking it to create presentation slides that I can then edit. 

Here is a first pass at creating presentation from the PDF using Notebook LM - it is far too 'glossy' I would never use a deck like this - but great indication of what Notebook LM can do in under a minute.  Please note proper attribution. 

Get Involved

Download: Access the full Toolkit PDF on Glasgow ePrints.

Contribute Case Studies: If your college or university wants to contribute sector case studies, reach out to Dr. Mark Peart at the University of Glasgow School of Education.

Once for Scotland Catch Up

 

I enjoy catching sessions from Once for Scotland on the first Thursday of each month.  It is great to hear about all of the joined-up digital initiatives in the national pipeline.  I do think many of these initiatives need more public awareness. There are a lot of potentially really good things happening. If you work across the public sector in Scotland you really should sign up for Once for Scotland. 

The initiative does not have a brand or logo, so I got AI to make one up. 

This month we got updates on 

Scottish Government Digital Mailbox 

The Scottish Government Digital Mailbox is a national digital communication platform designed to provide the people of Scotland with a single, secure location for receiving correspondence from public sector organisations. Following a successful CivTech challenge, and based on the Danish Digital Post system used population wide, the Scottish Government invested in the core infrastructure through Netcompany's AMI platform, integrating it with ScotAccount for trusted identity verification and the Scottish Government Cloud Platform to establish a scalable national service. The platform is now operational and forms part of key strategic programmes including the Digital Front Door (MyCare), providing a foundation for secure digital communications across health and wider public services in Scotland. The focus has now shifted from building the platform to driving adoption, onboarding public bodies, and realising the benefits of a shared national service. This supports the ambitions of the Sustainable Digital Public Services Delivery Plan, which aims to move 25% of public sector correspondence to digital channels by 2030 and deliver potential savings of more than £100 million per year through reduced printing, postage and administration costs.

I can see this as a great tool if adopted by organisations like Qualifications Scotland. 

ScotPayments – 

ScotPayments the payment service designed by and built for government, including background information, progress to date, what the programme is working towards and opportunities to become involved.

 Local Government Architecture Model 

The Local Government Architecture Model (LGAM) is an evolving shared framework for describing the technology councils need to deliver local public services. Creating a common language across local government to support collaboration, technology planning and the adoption of reusable solutions across the sector. 

ScotAccount v MyGovscot Accounts

Many citizens will be trying to understand the difference between their ScotAccount and their Mygovscot account, if they have set one or both up.  Here is a quick table guide. 

Feature	ScotAccount	mygovscot myaccount
Who runs it	Scottish Government	Local councils / Improvement Service
Purpose	National digital identity	Local council service login
Identity verification	Yes (photo ID or security questions)	No
Typical use	PVG, disclosures, MyCare.scot, Redress, DAS	Council tax, bins, schools, benefits
2FA	Yes	Sometimes
Reuse across services	Yes (national)	Yes (local authority only)
Interoperability	Separate from myaccount	Separate from ScotAccount

Year Two over the Top : Post Summer Blog Catch Up #OER26

I am still pinching myself that I'm not back in the trenches for a fraught start of term.

I've moved on a lot since last year, and the work keeps evolving. 

All the very best to all who are back for a new session. 

I had a busy end to my part-time consulting year!  And then a useful chance to simply potter about and reflect. Had great fun watching World Cup too in Scotland and France. 

I am a few blog posts behind. 

Here is a quick look at what I’ve been up to:

• Holyrood Communications: I had the privilege of speaking on the transformative role of AI in Education, exploring both the opportunities and challenges it brings for learners and teachers. Mainly how assessment needs to change. But have a close look at the presentation on skills you and learners need to develop to make the most of AI tools.
  
  
• #OER26: Connected with the open education community to share ideas and insights on the future of open educational resources. I focused on the practical things that open education advocates and their organisations should be doing to be open. Extended blog to follow.

• Very timely as the Scottish Government has finally got behind Open Practice. Caught up too over the summer with the team leading on this work. Worth a read - if I was still working at a public body or at an institutional level I'd be figuring out how we start the journey towards sharing more resources publicly with an appropriate open licence and discussing this with all stakeholders. 
  
  
  The #openscot community and Association for Learning Technology have lots of experts on hand who could help.

• Quality Systems: Delivered a session for Northampton College on familiar territory of quality systems internal and external quality assurance for their engineering academic team. 

• Île de Ré: Balanced the busy schedule with a fantastic summer break on the French coast, enjoying the quiet beaches, cycling routes, food, wine, and plenty of sunshine (perhaps too hot this year).

• Glasgow Commonwealth Games: Spent an unforgettable time volunteering on the ground, soaking in the vibrant energy of the events. Some memorable moments: the Ugandan team (on a rainy day)  telling me how beautiful Scotland was in the autumn and being surprised it was summer.  The Cook Islands team singing and playing their music on their hotel balcony each evening.   Above all, working with a great set of volunteers and welcoming so many different people into the City of Glasgow. 

• RSA Scotland: Supported the Commonwealth Reception in Trades House of Glasgow, engaging in fantastic conversations with fellows and partners celebrating regional and international connections and handing the baton on to the Indian delegation. 

• Mentoring: Continued supporting senior leaders on driving change, leveraging digital tools while staying human, and leading authentically. If you role-play being a rotter, you risk getting stuck in that mode, and we have more than enough angry leaders in the world right now!

Looking forward to ALTC in Cardiff, meeting new ALT Scotland Exec members, and supporting Instructure Canvas (including Canvas Con in November) and moving on a few other projects that will keep me occupied into the new year.