Digital papers are for candidates who have difficulty reading or accessing the ordinary paper based assessment or with writing their answers.
Digital papers are a type of Assessment Arrangement - one of many methods of support you can use in the examination, such as a reader or scribe. You need to think about whether using technology and/or a digital paper is the best method of support, or whether other methods are more suitable.
Consider:
- The examination.
What does the assessment involve and what's involved in reading and answering the questions? - The needs and skills of the candidate.
Does the candidate need help to see the paper, read the paper, physically handle the paper, to write or record their answers, or for some other reason? - The most appropriate method of support.
How will a Digital Paper or use of technology help this candidate in this examination? Using technology offers independence and should always be considered ahead of methods that aren't so independent, but some learners may need different methods of support for particular subjects. The digital option is not always most suitable.
For example:- A pupil with handwriting challenges might use technology in examinations that involve writing large amounts of text, such as English or History, but choose to handwriting on the paper Maths exam, because writing calculations by hand may be more practical, and less writing is required compared to English.
- A pupil who requires a high level of magnification might find a large print papers easier for some subjects to navigate than using technology.
- A pupil who requires text to read might use a computer reader for languages and social subjects and a human reader in science, technology, engineering and maths, because computer readers can't read STEM expressions in the SQA digital papers.
Visit the SQA Assessment Arrangement web pages to find out more about Assessment Arrangements. This provides:
- Information about the range of assessment arrangements that can be used.
- Specific guidance on digital assessment arrangements.
- An Assessment Arrangements Toolkit with examples and templates for identifying the learner's needs and suitable arrangements to meet those needs.
- Information about Quality Assurance processes for SQA assessment arrangements.
The most appropriate method of support
| Support provided by digital paper and/or assistive technology | Seeing (due to e.g. visual impairment) | Reading (due to e.g. dyslexia, ASD, learning difficulty, hearing impairment) | Handling the paper (due to e.g. physical disability) | Hand writing | Spelling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zoom / magnify |  | | no | no | no |
| Change background colours | | | no | no | no |
| Read questions with Computer Reader | | | no | no | no |
| Use keyboard or mouse to turn pages | | no | | no | no |
| Type with keyboard or keyboard alternative | | no | | | no |
| Spellcheck or word prediction | no | no | no | no | |
| Speech-to-text Dictation / Speech Recognition | no | no | | | |
| On-screen keyboard accessed by mouse, switches, eye-gaze etc | no | no | | | no |
