Photography 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 you send it in.

Presentation
Include a clear contents list with your assessment submission. All your work must be clearly labelled, stating which assignment it relates to and with 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. At Levels 1 and 2 you can send jpeg files on a CD or DVD but these must be fully corrected and of an appropriate size and resolution ready for final printing. At Level 3 all work must be submitted in hard copy as well as digital copy. Although 'proof' prints are quite adequate for early assignments, final prints for assessment should be exhibition quality and may be whatever size is appropriate to the work. An exception to this might be if final work is to be shown as photobook or on website. 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 courses

All five assignments plus any amendments made in response to the tutor reports Tutor reports Learning log or url for blog 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.

Level two courses

All six assignments plus any amendments made in response to the tutor reports Tutor reports Learning log or url for blog. The 2,000 word critical review. This should be submitted as a sixth assignment, but you should be working on this along side your other work (send both physical and digital copies). Portfolio as specified in the particular course

Landscape
Twelve images; three from each season as explained in the course introduction and at the end of 2: Light and its measurement

Level three courses

A comprehensive selection of the work produced for the assignments Essay (3,500) words (send both physical and digital copies). Tutor reports Learning log or url for blog.

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.

Further tips on presenting your work for assessment

Tip
Try running a usability tests by asking someone who is not familiar with your work and its structure to find specific items in your proposed assessment submission and gauge their performance.

Tip
Ensure everything is arranged optimally for the purposes of assessment. While all the important elements maybe there they can be camouflaged by surrounding general log material and notes on exercises etc, meaning they have to be searched for, so it would be good to have them together coherently organised and labelled.

Tip
Separate out the assignments to make them easily and obviously accessible. Each assignment should consist of, in running order, the original assignment, the tutor feedback, the student's reflections on the feedback and then any changes theyve made in the light of the feedback and the reasons for it.

Tip
Produce two physical documents, one consisting of the assignments, paginated as above, and the other a much more free form journal.

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.