Moderators Report

 I have read the moderators report from 2019 and theses are the main 10 points I have pointed out to keep in mind while doing my NEA:

1. The strongest work was by candidates managed to explore the cross-media aspects of the brief very well with excellent links being made between products. Unfortunately, a number of candidates produced very unbalanced pieces, with some excellent products being paired with lacklustre websites (or occasionally vice versa). Considering that the products are each worth the same number of marks and that there is an obvious effect on the mark for digital convergence, it was to be hoped that a comparable amount of time would be spent developing both.

2. Some centres sent all material in hard copy and, in general, these samples were not well organised. Moderators sometimes had to deal with several folders which included large bundles of paper, sometimes crushed or folded, with little sense of structure. If this approach is to be followed, it is suggested that centres spend time collating materials into folders/ portfolios – this was the approach taken by the most organised centres.

3. The best coversheets included clear, bespoke, candidate-specific commentaries that referenced assessment criteria and cited examples from student work. This was particularly helpful where candidates had produced projects that took a counter-typical approach to the briefs. Less helpful CCSs lacked depth or detail - such an approach did not really help when identifying why certain marks had been given; this was particularly evident with regard to digital convergence.

4. Some were incredibly detailed, going into great depth about how and why particular effects would be created and how these ideas linked to ideas explored elsewhere in the course. The very best made clear links between the two main products and explained how digital convergence would connect the two. These also tended to go through the brief in depth, demonstrating how every requirement and detail was to be addressed. Many statements were unbalanced, with a great deal of detail about the offline product but very little about the online, suggesting that these candidates saw a hierarchical relationship between the two which should be avoided. 

5. The stronger magazines chose their fonts with discrimination (not relying on standard body-text fonts to create sell lines or the masthead) and showed control in terms of size and leading. The best work used a variety of images on the contents, with page numbers on the images anchoring them to the written contents, and appropriately laid out and sized text.

6. Most magazines understood the requirement to appeal to an AB audience and there were some inventive approaches to this. Many of the magazines constructed representations really well, with subtle but thoughtful differences around nationality, class, aspiration as well as ethnicity and gender. Some of the most interesting work questioned issues of normative gender stereotypes.

7. Candidates who do not seem to have practised using the technology earlier in the course were significantly disadvantaged. So I will practice using applications like photoshop, Illustrator and iMovie

8. Candidates should generate all their own original content; work should have no ‘found’ material to avoid potential malpractice.

9. Technical expertise in page design was generally very good, although the main software of choice (Photoshop) is not always as good at handling text as desktop publishing programmes (such as InDesign).

10. Although research and planning are not formally assessed, it was clear that where candidates had conducted focused research into the codes and conventions, such as assessing the conventional size for text on a contents page, this did result in much more appropriate work which compared favourably with professional productions. Such magazines had clearly been inspired by existing examples from Bauer and captured a sense of verisimilitude. Most magazines understood the requirement to appeal to an AB audience and there were some inventive approaches to this.