INTERNAL VERIFICATION PROCESS
Internal verification is the process by which a centre regularly samples and evaluates its assessment practices and decisions, and acts on the findings to ensure consistency and fairness.
It involves three key processes: 1. co-ordination of the assessment process; 2. sampling of assessed work; 3. standardisation of assessment practice;
and is carried out by one or more Internal Verifiers.
The role of the Internal Verifier is to ensure that:
• assessment is appropriate, consistent, fair and transparent and does not unintentionally discriminate against any learner;
• tutors/assessors receive ongoing advice and support, for example in designing assessment activities;
• learners clearly understand assessment requirements and are given opportunities to achieve against the assessment criteria;
• learners’ work is presented in a manner that enables effective verification to take place
• evidence of learner achievement is clearly mapped to the assessment criteria;
• Recommendations for the Award of Credit are valid, reliable and consistent.
Internal Verification (IV) is the system that ensures learner evidence is complete and genuinely meets all the required assessment criteria. It is also the system that should identify and alert learners and assessors when they have not assembled evidence that meets all the assessment criteria – and so are in danger of failing that unit. If IV is carried out responsibly and in time for the learner to be alerted and supported in producing any additional evidence, then the IV system can ensure the centre avoids learners being failed unnecessarily.
The IV is responsible for ensuring all portfolios are ready when presented for External Verification. Learners who are found to have gaps in their portfolio of evidence at External Verification are likely to be failed because at that point, there is usually no time for the learner to come back and do any additional work. IV is therefore key to learner achievement and the Internal Verifier must take responsibility for any learners they put forward being failed by the External Verifier. The IV should either pick up shortcomings in time for the learner to address them, or not put that learner forward as having achieved.
IV is also the system that enables External Verification to only sample learners’ work. The External Verifier relies on the effectiveness and integrity of the IV system to not put forward learners who have not achieved. If the External Verifier feels the IV process is not effective and / or performed with absolute integrity, for example putting forward learners for an award whose work does not justify this, then the External Verifier will be forced to instead consider a much greater number of learners’ evidence themselves. Considering more learners is time consuming for the External Verifier and will cause delay. This situation may also result in the centre being awarded a ‘high risk’ status, since the integrity of the awarding system would be compromised.
Internal Verifiers usually need only sample assessments to ensure their assessors are assessing fairly across different units and levels. The Internal Verifier’s sample can also show them the assessor has ensured that learner evidence is appropriate, effectively labelled, and fully ready for the External Verifier to consider. However, the sample strategy needs to ensure it covers appropriate elements, and including all different assessors, all different levels and different Units or subject areas.