Safer Internet Day 2017

Many of you may already be aware but for those of you who are still recovering from the post-Christmas blues, I thought I’d send a reminder of the upcoming Safer Internet Day 2017. This year it is taking place on 7th February, and SQA will be supporting this initiative once again. As part of our activities on and around the day, we’ll be issuing a number of top tips to help users, particularly young people, to stay safe, and be mindful of malicious online activities.

From a qualifications perspective, this is a good opportunity to look back at what has been happening since Safer Internet Day 2016. Last April, the Internet Safety unit specification was reviewed and updated to reflect some of the contemporary threats to online users, such as cyberbullying and sextortion. In an effort to make the online material for that award more user-friendly and accessible, we decided to migrate all the content of the Internet Safety web page to the SQA Academy website. I’m delighted to announce that this process is almost complete and the content will be available to users in the next few weeks. Users will not be required to have an SQA Academy account in order to access the material.

Also, the NPAs in Cyber Security at levels 4, 5 and 6, which were developed in collaboration with Police Scotland, have proved to be popular with schools and colleges and the uptake is steadily increasing, which is excellent news. As part of Safer Internet Day 2017, SQA is looking to do a follow-up with some schools and students to see how the Cyber Security awards are performing.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me and remember…stay safe online!

Emma Published 20/01/2017