Visual Studies courses

Guidelines for submission for formal assessment

Look at OCAs Student Support Guide Assessments and how to get qualified, available to download from, OCAs student website: oca-student.com. This will tell you about the assessment process. Also look out for videos and other tips on assessment that are posted on weareoca.com. Look out for updates on these guidelines on oca-student. com. Digital Submissions
Please note that all written work (tutor reports, learning logs and blogs do not have to be printed out, if they are submitted digitally) submitted for assessment MUST be submitted digitally as well as printed out and submitted on paper along with the rest of your submission. Digital work should be submitted to assessment@ oca-uk.com, clearly stating your name, student number, the course name and what the digital work attached is (eg critical review, essay etc) This is a requirement and is to enable OCA to carry out plagiarism checks on work, and a requirement of our validation with the University for the Creative Arts. If you are submitting an entirely digital portfolio on CD or a USB stick, or entirely via a blog, only a sustained piece of writing (such as an essay or critical review) needs to be sent to assessment@oca-uk.com as well as printed out and submitted for assessment in hard copy. If you are submitting work on a USB stick or a CD please ensure you check it thoroughly for viruses before sending.

Presentation
Include a clear contents list with your assessment submission. All your work must be clearly labelled, stating which assignment it relates to and you should have your name and student number on every item you submit. Where there is a clear link between project work and your learning log, or blog, this should be clearly labelled or cross referenced in some way. Use the Harvard Referencing system throughout your written work. Ensure you cite all references appropriately. (See the OCA guide to Harvard referencing text). The professionalism of your presentation is important and you will lose marks for poor presentation. Students may consult with their tutor if they feel unsure about what to include in their submission based on their strengths and weaknesses and also for guidance on presentation methods.

Requirements at each level

Level one course (HE Level 4)
All five assignments of the course including: the output of the five assignments including annotations and copies of images referred to your learning log or link to your blog url you must also submit copies of all your tutor report forms. If your tutor has annotated your written work, then you must submit the annotated version of the written work as well as the final version. Important note about Assignment one for level one courses. Although Assignment one is not formally assessed component of the course, the assessors do want to see it, so that they gain a comprehensive view of your development. So, if you are applying for formal assessment, do send assignment one in with all the others.

Clarification on presentation of work when studying multiple courses

If you are studying more than one OCA course at the same time, you must ensure that your work on the courses you are studying do not overlap in any way. You must keep separate learning logs, demonstrating that the research you do is specifically for each of the courses. It is essential that when you present your work for assessment that it is clear which work relates to which course. There must be a discrete set of work for each course so that the assessors are clear what they are assessing. Students cannot present the same piece of work for marks on two different units. However, if a students is studying two units at the same time and doing general sketchbook work for example, to support both units, this person can submit the sketchbooks for both units as evidence of background research.

About assessment at OCA

The assessment process involves your work being marked by one assessor and then moderated by another assessor. The average amount of time spent reviewing each submission at assessment is 45 minutes, but this may increase at level 3 (HE6). The assessment process is validated by an external examiner who observes the assessment and reviews a sample of the submissions. The resulting marks are provisional. The marks are then confirmed by an exam board convened by the validating university, UCA.