All ISPA members are tomorrow being sent a letter (ispa-_-qca ) from the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority asking for their help during the forthcoming school examination season.

The QCA is concerned about the risk of unlawful publication of examination test questions on the internet and in particular that the usual routes for a copyright owner to request an ISP to take down unlawfully published information may not react quickly enough to avoid serious disruption to the national curriculum tests. This situation has apparently been the case in the past.

The QCA is therefore requesting that ISPA Members co-operate with QCA by providing alternative contact information which would be used to notify an unlawful publication of test materials and to request an emergency take down.

I am happy to help here of course. However I can see a problem with the approach. For example it is quite possible for kids to upload this information to non UK based sites who might not be interested in helping the QCA and who indeed the QCA will never have heard of.

Still notwithstanding this I can only say “sorry kids – you will have to pass the exam without an advanced sight of the questions – the way we all had to”.