On Thursday 14 November the Minister for Education Adrian Piccoli visited a Board HSC marking centre to talk with HSC markers and see a demonstration of onscreen marking.

With Board Chief Executive Carol Taylor, the Minister met markers at the Board’s ACER marking centre in Alexandria, where Society and Culture and Biology examinations were being marked.

Overall the Board employs more than 5,000 markers and over 1,500 now mark onscreen. Of the onscreen markers, over 400 are based at the ACER marking centre. Other onscreen markers work out of marking centres at Rosehill, Maitland, Coffs Harbour and the University of NSW.

In total for the 2013 HSC the Board will mark over two million writing books for 117 HSC examinations during October and November, and the volume of exam papers marked onscreen is increasing every year. For the 2013 HSC 44% of HSC marks will be captured onscreen.

The Board’s evaluation of onscreen marking is that it is faster, more accurate and, as it requires only a browser and an internet connection, can be easily done from home. Also Senior Markers and Supervisors of Marking can review the marks in real time.

The Board has developed a transition model for courses being adapted to onscreen marking. This means that for the first year a course moves to onscreen marking all markers work from a Board venue such as ACER.

In subsequent years, markers come together at a corporate venue for a number of briefing sessions, and then move to "external marking", where they work from home after school.

With marking well underway following the end of exams and the release of Assessment Ranks on 6 November, the next HSC milestones are the First in Course event on 17 December and the general release of HSC results on 18 December.