Diploma in Digital Applications


In England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, the Diploma in Digital Applications was an optional information and communication technology course, usually studied by Key Stage 4 or equivalent school students. DiDA was introduced in 2005 as a creation of the Edexcel examination board. DiDA was notable for its time in that it consisted entirely of coursework, completed on-computer; all work relating to the DiDA course was created, stored, assessed and moderated digitally. In the late 2000s it was generally taught as a replacement for GCSE ICT, and the GNVQ which had been withdrawn in 2007.
DiDA faced controversy in its lifetime, over its focus on producing documentation instead of more creative or high level ICT projects. According to the Alison Wolf, [Baroness Wolf of Dulwich|Wolf report] it was primarily taught by schools to inflate league table scores as it was the equivalent of studying four GCSEs at once. This was addressed by a revised version from 2012, but student enrolments collapsed from 200,000 students on the original to 6,000 in 2016. It was discontinued in 2020.

Course

The course consists of five units. Using ICT is a compulsory unit. The other four units, Multimedia, Graphics, ICT in Enterprise and Computer Games Authoring were optional. Students who completed the Using ICT module alone received an Award in Digital Applications, which was equivalent to one GCSE or Standard Grade. Those who completed the Using ICT unit and any one of the other four units received a Certificate in Digital Applications, which was equivalent to two GCSEs or Standard Grades. Students who completed four modules in total received the full Diploma in Digital Applications, which was equivalent to four GCSEs or Standard Grades. Edexcel also made it possible for candidates to achieve a Certificate in Digital Applications Plus, equivalent to three GCSEs or Standard Grades, upon completion of Using ICT and another two units.
The original 2004 pilot included three moderation windows; this was extended to four in the 2005 launch to give students one additional chance for a resit if they failed.

Levelling & qualifications

The qualification was available either as the equivalent of one, two, or four GCSEs as AiDA, CiDA or DiDA respectively.
DiDA GradeGCSE Grade for Level 1GCSE Grade for Level 2
Distinction CA*
Merit DA
Credit EB
Pass F/GC
Fail UU

The following modules were available:
  • Using ICT
  • Multimedia
  • Graphics
  • ICT in Enterprise
  • Games Authoring
All students were required to complete the Using ICT module. Those studying CiDA had to complete an additional one, CiDa+ an additional two, and DiDA an additional three modules from the list. Games Authoring was only available from 2009 onwards; DiDA students before that point were simply studying all four modules then available.

Adobe Associate Certificates

Students who successfully completed DiDA units D202 and D203 were eligible to claim Adobe Systems Associate Certification, provided they attained a merit or distinction grade along with other requirements. There were three different types:
The Adobe certification scheme was not widely adopted by schools, as most did not have the teacher expertise required for its delivery. Adobe discontinued Fireworks in 2013, mid-way through the program.

Criticism

Use in league table score inflation

The qualification was initially designed in response to concerns that schools were using the older GNVQ as a way to inflate their league table performance in the mid 2000s, as it counted as four GCSEs but could be studied in the time of one. Academies in particular relied on DiDA in the same way during the late 2000s, with one study discovering that hypothetically excluding DiDA from rankings caused the score of an academy to drop 21%. Like many other qualifications DiDA was revised in 2012 to meet changing specifications from government, amid concerns that was being taught primarily in order to inflate league table scores at the expense of other qualifications. As a result of these changes the original qualification was removed from league table consideration in 2014. For 2015, the revised version was counted as a single qualification rather than four, and saw significantly less widespread adoption by schools.

Educational value

was concerned about the volume of assessment evidence, with students required to create a large amount of documentation. Grading of these documents was determined by the structure, composition and language used, and not the merit of the projects they were related to. Schools were forced to spend the majority of lesson time on these documents rather than "higher level ICT skills", and avoided creative projects and professional software because of the time requirement. The Thomas Telford School, which built the online platform for the GNVQ found that DiDA was "not a suitable alternative". Ofsted was similarly critical of the qualification, describing it as "of doubtful value". DiDA faced criticism from some IT experts early in its development, describing it as a "soft option". The 2012 revisions were made to address concerns from the government that it offered "no basis for progression to further study or to meaningful employment".

Difficulty and delivery issues

Concerns were raised during the pilot scheme about the high difficulty of the qualification for learners. Speaking to The Guardian, the ICT head of Moor End Technology College commented of the pilot scheme: "Students who were able to get through GNVQ will struggle with Dida. It will be very difficult for us to match the kind of results we have achieved with GNVQ. To get four full A-Cs you have to complete four Dida units. In the pilot some of my students struggled to complete one". Many other schools ultimately found it too difficult for low achievers. Edexcel significantly lowered the grade boundaries for the 2006 academic year, with the pass threshold set at 36% due to these concerns. For 2007, 700 schools which had previously offered the diploma switched instead to the equivalent OCR Nationals.
The qualification also had a reputation for being difficult to teach; many teachers were unsure of what students actually needed to do in order to pass. Many centres did not have the staff expertise to be able to teach the Adobe Associate Certification and so that part of the scheme never saw widespread adoption. Some centres continued to teach using the 2005 version as late as 2018, by which point Pearson considered it "no longer fit for purpose".