First online GCSE makes the grade

The UK is soon to get its very first GCSE assessed entirely online.

Awards body OCR has launched web assessment for the Environmental and Land-Based Science GCSE from this month. Coursework will be submitted electronically, with web-based exams starting from 2007.

The online exams will be invigilated under the same conditions as their paper and pen equivalents and will use OCR's secure extranet to stop would-be cheaters.

Computers will mark multiple choice questions but moderators will still be employed to tackle wordier offerings from students.

Thomas Alleynes School in Uttoxeter is among the schools that will be offering the new e-GCSE. Advanced skills teacher Martin Wedgwood said the move to online assessment will not only help students present their work more professionally but also cut down on paperwork for teachers.

He said in a statement: "Another positive is that the online assessment will put an end to endless reams of paper for both students and teachers, which will make an enormous difference to us, as students can often mislay much of this paperwork. Storing their work online eliminates this risk."

OCR hopes to expand the number of subjects to be assessed in this way, with modern languages expected to join the fold in the future.

The suggestion has not pleased all teachers. Anna Whiting, a modern languages teacher from north London, said: "The whole point of languages is to communicate with other people and it's true conversations do take place on the internet but you have to have face to face conversations.

"This would be a real shame, it's boiling [languages] down to less that it is - it's about talking to people, communicating with them, finding out about them, and you can't do that just with computers."