Twitter Behance Dribbble Instagram

UNEB releases Subsidiary ICT Support Files 2017, grants public download

Picture of Mukalele Rogers

Mukalele Rogers

An information technologies specialist with great experience and skills in teaching ICT and website development. Passionate about educational technologies (ICT4E), digital pedagogy advocacy and building communities around technology.

Uganda National Examination Board (UNEB) has released this year’s Support Files for Subsidiary ICT practical papers S850/2 and S850/3, and for the first time, uploaded them to their publically accessible resource portal, where anyone can download without need for logging in to the system.

This is going to be the second time support files are to be used during Subsidiary ICT Practical examinations since thier introduction in 2016. The concept of ICT examination Support Files is new Uganda, but has been used before by international examination bodies like Cambridge IGCSE.

What are Support Files?

Support Files’ are specimen files that are provided to students in softcopy for use during the computer practical examinations. The support files may include named word documents, spreadsheet files, text files, image files, etc., and are usually referred to in the question paper by their file names and file extensions. A candidate may be requested to open or load a given file from the support files folder and do certain tasks with it such as save as, copy and paste, format, insert table, image etc. All the candidates are supposed to do is to ensure that they can locate the required support file and follow the instructions on the question paper.

How did UNEB avail support files last year?

Last year, the support files were restricted –   downloading them was only accessible by school administrators and after logging in to the UNEB eReg schools web portal, whose login credentials are officially sent to registered center head masters. However, many schools don’t have examination centers and so they could not get the login credentials. Additionally, some center headmasters lost the passwords while others found difficultly in logging in to their schools portals due to computer literacy challenges. Many ICT Teachers and Computer Laboratory attendants found challenges accessing the support files in time, yet they are meant to get the support files 1 week to the examination date, in order to distribute them on to the candidates desktops as per the UNEB Guidelines.

The other challenge faced by the teachers was the format in which the support files were provided. The support files were downloadable as .rar archive which can can not open on windows operating system without installing a third party archive software such as WinRAR. To solve this challenge, this year UNEB has simply zipped the files into .zip archives which can be opened easily on Windows even without need for installing additional software.

What are the UNEB Guidelines for Usage of Support Files?

According to a 27th June 2016 UNEB Circular on Usage of Support Files, the following were stated as the guidelines:

  • Support Files shall be uploaded on the UNEB portal one week before the practical examination.
  • The uploaded files shall be in a folder that reflects the current year e.g. “UNEB Support Files 2016”
  • The schools should download the files on a CD and test them to find out if they are running and opening.
  • The computers in the laboratory should be checked and cleaned.
  • The computer teachers should then put the Support Files on the Computer Desktops in the Computer Laboratory.
  • Candidates should not access the laboratory after the Support Files have been put on the Desktops until the time of the practical examination.
  • After each shift and before the next shift of the examination, the Computer teacher should be allowed in the laboratory to make sure each Desktop has only the original Support Files

 

Teachers warned against disclosing support files to candidates

During a recent ICT Teachers retooling workshop, teachers were warned against showing UNEB support files to their candidates before the exam. It was noted that some teachers even try to predict possible questions to be set basing on the support files. However, the teachers were made to realize that it is actually dangerous to ‘spot’ or ‘guess’ questions for the candidates. There is very little that someone can do with the support files alone without the actual question papers, different unpredictable questions can be asked on the same support files. Teachers are cautioned against giving hints to students on the support files to be used because this confuses the students the more. Some panicky students will for example do a task such as calculating the sum of numbers in a spreadsheet as predicted by their teacher even when there is no question on the question paper to that effect. Additionally, as per the UNEB guidelines, students should not have prior knowledge of the support files and a teacher who violates this guideline commits examination malpractice.

Downloading Support Files for this year

Paper Two and Paper Three 2017 Subsidiary ICT Examinations are going to be done on Thursday 30th November and Friday 1st December respectively as indicated on the 2017 UNEB 2017 examinations timetable . The support Files for use in the examination room can be downloaded from the public resources section of the UNEB eReg portal http://ereg.uneb.ac.ug   [Direct Links: S850/2 Support Files 2017 and S850/3 Support Files 2017] or by logging in to the private schools portal here.

Share Post:

354 Responses

  62. I do believe all the ideas you’ve introduced to your post. They’re really convincing and will definitely work. Nonetheless, the posts are very brief for starters. May you please lengthen them a little from subsequent time? Thanks for the post.

  204. I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article.

  229. Nestas rodadas poderá ganhar “gold scatters” que darão prémios instantaneamente. Os melhores sites de casino oferecem diferentes métodos de pagamento para facilitar a vida dos jogadores. Afinal, quanto mais opções para levantar os ganhos obtidos em caça niquel dinheiro real, melhor para o cliente. Se você curte cassino e jogo de Poker, o Vídeo Poker online é perfeito para você. Jogue quando e onde estiver e divirta-se com o melhor do Vídeo Poker online. Você escolha se joga no seu computador, celular ou tablet e aproveite o melhor do cassino online. E antes de jogar valendo dinheiro real, você também pode jogar grátis para testar as suas habilidades e encontrar o jogo que faz mais o seu estilo. Explore our huge choice of Slots across a range of different stakes. Travel to mystical worlds, enjoy fun bonus games and features, and play for huge jackpots.
    https://globalcatalog.com/estes.us
    Os game shows são uma categoria emocionante nos cassinos online, oferecendo uma combinação única de entretenimento e oportunidades de ganhos. Esses jogos inovadores e interativos são baseados em programas de televisão e jogos de tabuleiro populares, geralmente envolvendo elementos de sorte e habilidade. É fundamental lembrar que os jogos de cassino devem ser encarados como uma forma de entretenimento e nunca como uma fonte de renda ou uma maneira de escapar de problemas pessoais. A equipe da Laíse está empenhada em promover o jogo responsável e em garantir que seus usuários desfrutem de uma experiência de jogo segura e responsável. Está atualmente a usar um browser que o nosso site não suporta totalmente. A chave está em entender a volatilidade do jogo e a porcentagem de retorno ao jogador (RTP). Slots de alta volatilidade tendem a ter pagamentos maiores, mas vitórias menos frequentes, enquanto slots de baixa volatilidade oferecem pagamentos menores, mas vitórias mais frequentes.

  256. Hmm is anyone else experiencing problems with the pictures on this blog loading? I’m trying to determine if its a problem on my end or if it’s the blog. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

  267. I’m not sure why but this site is loading incredibly slow for me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a issue on my end? I’ll check back later and see if the problem still exists.

  278. Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your post seem to be running off the screen in Internet explorer. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with web browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know. The design look great though! Hope you get the problem resolved soon. Thanks

  282. Oh my goodness! a tremendous article dude. Thank you Nonetheless I am experiencing difficulty with ur rss . Don’t know why Unable to subscribe to it. Is there anyone getting an identical rss drawback? Anybody who knows kindly respond. Thnkx

  283. Hello, you used to write magnificent, but the last several posts have been kinda boring… I miss your super writings. Past several posts are just a little out of track! come on!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *