Guidance

Mark/Grade changes outside of Reviews of Marking and Moderation (ROMM) and Appeals

Updated 18 November 2024

Applies to England

Introduction

In order to fulfil our regulatory and accreditation functions as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, we require awarding organisations to provide exams delivery data for regulated qualifications.

What data will be collected?

Data on post-result mark and/or grade changes, outside of Reviews of Marking and Moderation (ROMM) and Appeals, will be collected for GCSE, AS and A level.

The scope of the collection is to capture any instance where an issued result is replaced by a different result, outside of the ROMM, reviews of administrative decisions and appeals processes. Therefore, all mark and/or grade changes which have occurred subsequent to the issue of results, which are not the direct result of a Review or an Appeal, should be recorded in this data return.

Please do not include changes as a result of a review of administrative decisions as these are recorded separately as part of the appeals data collection.

When will data be collected?

Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is agreed and maintained by Ofqual’s data services team.

File format

The file must be CSV format and the first row must be headers as displayed in the ‘Name’ column of the table below. The subsequent rows must have the values of the data to be reported which must match the format and validation rules below.

General completion guidelines

• numeric values must not have any formatting
• all mark changes should be provided, regardless of whether or not is has resulted in a grade change
• the final two fields should have the relevant codes entered as per the agreed lists, included in the specification
• changes to English Endorsements and Science Practicals should also be reported
• if a unit has more than one change for different reasons, this should be recorded as an additional row of data
• changes relating to special consideration should only be for requests made on or after results dates
• when reporting mark and/or grade changes for outcomes that are reconsidered or changed for more than 1 reason we expect the mark and/or grade changes to be reported at the overall qualification level. As such, if the same mark and/or grade is changed for 2 distinct reasons, the change seen across both rows is the same and not distinct to each individual reason
• when reporting cases where there is more than one mark/grade change associated to the same candidate with the same reason for reconsideration and change (be this across 2 different units or the same unit) we expect each mark/grade change to be recorded separately. The cumulative effect of the several mark changes to be seen across the multiple records
• when a change is made to a candidate’s mark and/or grade which is later reversed, we would like to capture both changes. For the row indicating the change back to the original mark/grade we would expect the reason for change to be documented “reversal of a previous grade change”. If possible, we advise that AOs only report on the change and reversal of change if the initial change was issued to a centre
• in order to distinguish between endorsement and non-endorsement grades, please report full endorsement grades, for example, ‘Pass’, ‘Merit’ or ‘Distinction’ as opposed to ‘P’, ‘M’ or ‘D’
• in order to distinguish between endorsement and non-endorsement grades, please report separate unit codes for rows relating to endorsements

Name	Description	Position	Validation Regular Expression	Description of Regular Expression
ExamSeries	Exam series data relates to for example, June 2019	1	^(June)([ ][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$	Full month name of exam series and year.
ReportingDate	Date the file was due to be submitted regardless of when it was actually uploaded. Format accepted 120 ODBC canonical yyyy-mm-dd.	2	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits).
AwardingOrganisation	Name of the awarding organisation	3	^.{1,100}$	1 to 100 characters accepted.
CentreNo	Centre number (NCN)	4	^\d{1,5}$	Up to 5-digit integer accepted.
UniqueCandidateIdentifier	Unique Candidate Identifier (UCI)	5	^.{1,13}$	Alphanumeric 13 characters accepted.
QAN	Qualification Accreditation Number for example, 123/1234/1	6	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters accepted.
SpecificationTitle	Specification title also known as subject title	7	^.{1,150}$	1 to 150 characters accepted.
SpecificationCode	Specification code also known as Subject Award Code and Cash-in Code	8	^.{1,7}$	1 to 7 characters accepted.
QualificationLevel	Level of qualification for example, GCSE	9	^(GCSE|AS|A level)$	One of the following list: GCSE, AS, A level.
UnitCode	Unit or component identifier	10	^.{1,10}$	1 to 10 characters accepted.
OriginalQualificationUMSModularOrScaleScorelinear	Original qualification UMS (modular) / Scale score (linear)	11	^\d{1,3}$	Up to 3-digit integer accepted. -2 also accepted for not applicable or unknown value.
ResultingQualificationUMSModularOrScaleScorelinear	Resulting qualification UMS (modular) / Scale score (linear)	12	^\d{1,3}$	Up to 3-digit integer accepted. -2 also accepted for not applicable or unknown value.
OriginalQualificationGrade	Original qualification grade	13	^(A*A*|A*A|AA*|AA|AB|BB|BC|BC*|C*C*|C*C|CC|CD|DD|DE|EE|EF|FF|FG|GG|A*|A|B|C*|C|D|E|F|G|N|Q|U|X|9|8|7|6|5|4|3|2|1|9-9|9-8|8-8|8-7|7-7|7-6|6-6|6-5|5-5|5-4|4-4|4-3|3-3|3-2|2-2|2-1|1-1|-2)$	One of the following list: A, A Star, AA, A Star A Star, AA, A Star A, AA, AA, AB, BB, BC, BC, CC, CC, CC, CD, DD, DE, EE, EF, FF, FG, GG, A, B, C, C, D, E, F, G, N, Q, U, X, 9-1, 9-9 to 1-1, Pass, Merit, Distinction. -2 also accepted for unknown value.
ResultingQualificationGrade	Resulting qualification grade	14	^(A*A*|A*A|AA*|AA|AB|BB|BC|BC*|C*C*|C*C|CC|CD|DD|DE|EE|EF|FF|FG|GG|A*|A|B|C*|C|D|E|F|G|N|Q|U|X|9|8|7|6|5|4|3|2|1|9-9|9-8|8-8|8-7|7-7|7-6|6-6|6-5|5-5|5-4|4-4|4-3|3-3|3-2|2-2|2-1|1-1|-2)$	One of the following list: A, A Star, AA, A Star A Star, AA, A Star A, AA, AA, AB, BB, BC, BC, CC, CC, CC, CD, DD, DE, EE, EF, FF, FG, GG, A, B, C, C, D, E, F, G, N, Q, U, X, 9-1, 9-9 to 1-1, Pass, Merit, Distinction. -2 also accepted for unknown value.
ReasonForReconsideration	To indicate how the mark/grade came under re-consideration	15	^(1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8)$	Accepted values: 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5, 6, 7, 8. See Annex 1 for the reasons relating to these codes.
ReasonForMark/GradeChange	To indicate reason for mark/grade change	16	^(1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|16|18|19)$	Accepted values: 1, 2, 3, 4 ,5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19. See Annex 2 for the reasons relating to these codes.
DateOfChange	Date of the mark/grade change	17	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day (2 digits).

Annex 1: Reasons for reconsideration

Reason for reconsideration	Code to be entered for this field
Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of marking	1
Wider investigation into marking as a result of a review of moderation	2
Wider investigation as a result of an appeal	3
Wider investigation, not as a result of a review of marking, moderation or appeal.	4
Complaints	5
Other (any reason other than those listed here)	6
Special consideration	7
Malpractice	8

Annex 2: Reasons for mark and grade changes

Reasons for mark/grade change	Code to be entered for this field
Work not seen or marked by original examiner	1
Error in totalling of marks by original examiner (e.g. examiner did not add up marks correctly)	2
Error in transferring marks from paper script to exam processing system (e.g. discrepancy between marks on script and marks on exam board system)	3
Error in inputting marks on online marking system by original examiner (e.g. mark incorrectly input)	4
Error in centre submitting marks (e.g. incorrect mark submitted for non-examination assessment)	5
Original marking/processing had incorrectly dealt with a candidate rubric error and/or answer in wrong answer space.	6
Original marker unable to read candidate response (e.g. illegible handwriting)	7
Application of special consideration during post-results	8
Missing script located (e.g. original script not marked).	9
Processing error (e.g. scanning, scaling, grading)	10
Auto-marking error (e.g. wrong answer key)	11
Outcome of malpractice investigation (e.g. mark change due to estimation of marks)	12
Marking – misapplication of levels based mark scheme	13
Marking – misapplication of points-based mark scheme	14
Marking – unusual candidate response (e.g. candidate response not covered by the mark scheme)	15
Moderation – misapplication of criteria by original moderator (e.g. error by original moderator)	16
Value removed	17
Special cases (e.g. candidate sat wrong paper)	18
Reversal of a previous grade change	19

Contacts

For all queries relating to the data collection process, amendments to data previously provided, or for general guidance. please contact:

Data services

Ofqual
2nd floor, 1 Friargate
Station Square
Coventry
CV1 2GN

Email Data.Services@ofqual.gov.uk