Diploma in Digital Applications

In England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, the Diploma in Digital Applications (DiDA) was an optional information and communication technology (ICT) course, usually studied by Key Stage 4 or equivalent school students (aged 14–16). DiDA was introduced in 2005 (after a pilot starting in 2004) as a creation of the Edexcel examination board. DiDA was notable for its time in that it consisted entirely of coursework, completed on-computer; all work relating to the DiDA course was created, stored, assessed and moderated digitally. In the late 2000s it was generally taught as a replacement for GCSE ICT, and the GNVQ which had been withdrawn in 2007. DiDA faced controversy in its lifetime, particularly after the Wolf report found that it was primarily being taught by schools because it was the equivalent of studying four GCSEs at once, which had a major impact on league table scores. From 2012 a revised DiDA and CiDA were taught by a smaller number of centres, with the original qualification removed from league table consideration in 2014. The revised version was ultimately discontinued in 2020. At the scheme's launch, 200,000 students were enrolled on the qualification; this had declined to 6,000 on the revised version in 2016 and to 1,400 students by the time of the final report in 2020.

Course
The course consists of five units. Using ICT is a compulsory unit. The other four units, Multimedia, Graphics, ICT in Enterprise and Computer Games Authoring were optional. Students who completed the Using ICT module alone received an Award in Digital Applications (AiDA), which was equivalent to one GCSE or Standard Grade. Those who completed the Using ICT unit and any one of the other four units received a Certificate in Digital Applications (CiDA), which was equivalent to two GCSEs or Standard Grades. Students who completed four modules in total received the full Diploma in Digital Applications (DiDA), which was equivalent to four GCSEs or Standard Grades. Edexcel also made it possible for candidates to achieve a Certificate in Digital Applications Plus (CiDA+), equivalent to three GCSEs or Standard Grades, upon completion of Using ICT and another two units.

The original 2004 pilot included three moderation windows; this was extended to four in the 2005 launch to give students one additional chance for a resit if they failed.

Levelling & qualifications
The qualification was available either as the equivalent of one, two, or four GCSEs as AiDA, CiDA or DiDA respectively.

Adobe Associate Certificates
Students who successfully completed DiDA units D202 and D203 were eligible to claim Adobe Systems Associate Certification, provided they attained a merit or distinction grade along with other requirements. There were three different types:


 * Web Media using Dreamweaver - Multimedia
 * Multimedia using Flash - Multimedia
 * Web Graphics using Fireworks - Graphics

The Adobe certification scheme was not widely adopted by schools, as most did not have the teacher expertise required for its delivery. While the original DiDA specification was approved for use until 2014, Adobe discontinued Fireworks in 2013.

Use in league table score inflation
The qualification was initially designed in response to concerns that schools were using the older GNVQ as a way to inflate their league table performance in the mid 2000s, as it counted as four GCSEs but could be studied in the time of one. Academies in particular relied on DiDA in the same way during the late 2000s, with one study discovering that hypothetically excluding DiDA from rankings caused the score of an academy to drop 21%. DiDA faced criticism from some IT experts early in its development, describing it as a "soft option". The Thomas Telford School, which built the online platform for the GNVQ found that DiDA was "not a suitable alternative" (to the GNVQ). Ofsted was similarly critical of the qualification, describing it as "of doubtful value". Like many other qualifications DiDA was revised in 2012 to meet changing specifications from government, amid concerns that it offered "no basis for progression to further study or to meaningful employment", and was being taught in order to inflate league table scores at the expense of other qualifications. As a result of these changes the original qualification was removed from league table consideration in 2014. For 2015, the revised version was counted as a single qualification rather than four, and saw significantly less widespread adoption by schools.

Format and difficulty
Lewisham City Learning Centre was concerned about the volume of assessment evidence, with students required to create a large amount of documentation. Grading of these documents was determined by the structure, composition and language used, and not the merit of the projects they were related to. Schools were forced to spend the majority of lesson time on these documents rather than "higher level ICT skills", and avoided creative projects and professional software because of the time requirement. Few schools adopted the Adobe Associate Certification because of the issue. Teachers described the qualification as "very, very challenging" to teach, and many teachers were unsure of what students actually needed to do in order to pass. Speaking to The Guardian, the ICT head of Moor End Technology College commented of the pilot scheme: "Students who were able to get through GNVQ will struggle with Dida. It will be very difficult for us to match the kind of results we have achieved with GNVQ. To get four full A-Cs you have to complete four Dida units. In the pilot some of my students struggled to complete one". Many other schools ultimately found it too difficult for low achievers. Edexcel significantly lowered the grade boundaries for the 2006 academic year, with the pass threshold set at 36% due to these concerns. For 2007, 700 schools which had previously offered the diploma switched instead to the equivalent OCR Nationals. The scheme also faced organisational issues, with some centres continuing to teach using the 2005 version (discontinued in 2014) as late as 2018, by which point Pearson considered it "no longer fit for purpose".