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A Silver INGOT builds on the skills and understanding of the Bronze INGOT and adds more depth and complexity. It will take a minimum of 60 hours of study.

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Method of Assessment

This qualification will be made up from 3 mandatory units, with options to extend the qualification with more specialised units. The 3 mandatory units are:

1. Open standards, general knowledge, and working responsibly on networks

2. Practical use of the internet

3. Practical uses of office productivity tools

Each unit is designed to be delivered in 20 GLH (Guided Learning Hours). Students will be required to reach a certain standard of competence against criteria, before they take a set test or set of tasks to complete each unit. The criteria matching is based on 3 levels of understanding: self-sufficiency (2 marks); competence, but with some support (1 mark); no competence yet (0 marks).

Unit 2 is a research unit where marks are awarded to the process of researching and setting up an e-portfolio, and the e-portfolio itself.

Unit 1 and 3 both comprise tests set by the awarding body. There are 18 criteria in Unit 1 (possible 36 marks), and 17 in Unit 3 (possible 34 marks). Therefore a score of 36 in Unit 1 would earn the full 5 criteria marks.

Unit 1
Out of 30: Criteria Matching 5, Test 25

PASS	MERIT	DISTINCTION
18 >	21 - 24	25 >

PASS	MERIT	DISTINCTION
22 >	26 >	32 >

PASS	MERIT	DISTINCTION
18 >	21 - 24	25 >

Activities

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Unit 1 - Open Standards and the Use of Files and File types

Unit 1 - Being Responsible in a Networked Environment

Unit 2 - Practical Use of the Internet: Searching for and Using Information

Unit 2 - Practical Use of the Internet: Setting Up an E-Portfolio

Unit3 - Practical Use of Office Tools - Using Spreadsheets

Unit 3 - Practical Use of Office Tools - Using Databases

Producing the School/Office Website

For this requirement, you need to design a basic web site consisting of at least 5 linked pages. It is recommended you use an application for this task such as NVU and not proprietary software such as MS Publisher since this makes large and unwieldy files.

The site must be clear and easy to follow through, without excessive distractions such as flash animations. It must also have some documents to be downloaded. These documents need to be in an open format so that others may use them, but also be small so that people on slow connections are not discriminated against.

The site must be compliant and therefore you need to make sure that you can see it with several browsers such as Opera, Mozilla and Internet Explorer.

Putting Together a School/Office Circular or Newsletter

For this requirement, you need to demonstrate that you can use an application effectively to produce at least a 4 page document. This document needs to be easy to manage as it will be updated regularly and more than likely sent out via mail merge, but it also needs to be small in file size so that it can be e-mailed or placed on the web. You could consider using Scribus as a specialised desktop publishing package, or something similar. It needs to be able to output to something open such as pdf.

Other considerations for the choice of software to create it might be:

• the cost of the application you use (some commercial ones are €1000s)
• the built in support for templates and layouts so that you don't start from scratch
• the support for necessary feature such as mail merge, address labels
• the ease of exchanging your finished product with other applications
• the reliability of the software and it's resource requirements
  
• the size of the files produced for ease of storage and transfer
  

Spreadsheets

For this task you need to show some level of competence and understanding when using a spreadsheet application.

Databases

For this task you need to show some level of competence and understanding when using a database application.