[Informatics] A Tuesday Quibble

[Mark]

Hi, fellow pedants

Whilst perusing the new and exciting Informatics SAT assessment criteria, I
noticed something a little odd.

In Criterion 8's highest performance descriptor it says, "Applies
*systemically* a coherent and comprehensive set of criteria to fully
evaluate the effectiveness of the solution."

"Systemic", according to my Concise Oxford English Dictionary, means
"relating to the system as a whole". To which system is the descriptor
referring?

"*Systematically*", on the other hand,  means "done or acting according to
a fixed plan or system; methodical."

Could this perhaps be what the criterion actually intended to say?


For those of you who like that sort of thing, my Wednesday Quibble, will be
along the lines of....

In the "VCE Computing: Informatics Administrative information for
School-based Assessment (Unit 4, Outcome 1) 2016" PDF, the
student-generated evaluation criteria are mentioned under 'Scope of Task -
Folio' along with design ideas and detailed design. So far, so good.

But in the paragraph following, only the design ideas and detailed design
are required to be generated. The evaluation criteria are only *applied*.
At no point are students explicitly told to actually *generate* the
criteria.

This is exacerbated by the fact that earlier, under 'Nature of Task", it
specifies "*A folio of two or three alternative design ideas and the
detailed design specifications of the preferred design.*" Once again, the
need for *generating* evaluation criteria is not made clear.


Thursday's Quibble, for those of you who can't stand suspense, is this:

Under 'Nature of Task' there are four dotpoints (folio, MMOS, evaluation,
assessment). However there are another two dotpoints after this which are
actually part of the fourth dotpoint, yet they are presented with the same
hierarchical level as the preceding four. This makes them appear to be
separate tasks, which is confusing.


Friday's Quibble will complain about the same section which reads:

**  An assessment of the effectiveness of the project plan (Gantt chart) in
monitoring project*
*progress*


*   In one of the following:* A written report* An annotated visual plan.*

Firstly, I believe the word "forms" or "formats" is missing after
"following".
Secondly, it's very unclear whether the chosen format applies to only the
fourth dotpoint or all four dotpoints. (It is, fortunately, made clearer
later in the document.)

It would be less ambiguous to say:

**  An assessment of the effectiveness of the project plan (Gantt chart) in
monitoring project*
*progress, using one of the following formats:*
*   - A written report, or*
*   - An annotated visual plan.*

Happy quibbling

Mark
-- 

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com
http://vceit.com
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