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1.

Legal Issues

1.1

Understand the rights of an individual to be informed of, and to access, data held about them by an organisation (Data Protection Act)

1.2

Understand the legal issues when gathering data, and the need for consent to hold such data.

1.3

Understand need for confidentiality of information (employer and clients)

1.4

Know management responsibility for honesty and accuracy in recording, manipulating and presenting data

1.5

Understand the rules associated with Computer misuse / inappropriate use.

1.6

Understand problems regarding the creation, transmission, storage, downloading or display of any offensive, obscene, indecent, or menacing images, data or other material.

1.7

Understand the issue of copyrights over published electronic data belonging to individuals and organisations.

1.8

Know the concepts of the need to ensure data security, backup systems, data recovery.

1.9

Use a computer’s system software to safely and securely create and manage files and folders.

2

Health and Safety

2.1

Know the correct procedures for working with IT equipment, including ergonomic arrangements, safety of individuals and equipment.

2.2

Understand the causes of Repetitive Strain Injury, and how the risk of RSI can be minimised.

2.3

Understand implications when disposing of computer equipment and consumables with respect to environmental issues. E.g. Print consumables, recycling or disposing of used equipment, safe disposal of hardware.

2.4

Recognise some of the ways that energy efficiency can be improved - Energy Saving Software, use of screen savers, use of environmentally friendly monitors.

2.5

Understand the importance of print preview to minimise paper wastage and improve output.

3

Integration

3.1

Work with data files to select and import data across applications

3.2

Understand the capability to link information between packages – e.g. mail merge using spreadsheet or database file. Distinguish between the storing and displaying of information in different office applications

3.3

Understand the mechanism used to combine information from one application into another – e.g. use a spreadsheet chart in a word processed document.

3.4

Understand how to resize linked data as appropriate

3.5

Know the major vehicles for cross-platform transfer of information (rtf, txt, dif, csv etc).

3.6

Understand how to open/ import data from generic files and appreciate limitations of these formats

3.7

Understand procedures when transferring data between files when using the clipboard.

3.8

Know the limitations when copying data to another document (need to update)

4

Good practice

4.1

Understand the importance of maintaining integrity of imported data

4.2

Understand common generic methods for accessing files and folders

4.3

Understand how to create, name and rename folders and sub-folders

4.4

Understand the advantages of using the search and replace functions over manual methods to find and replace specific data

4.5

Understand the purpose of copy/move/delete files

4.6

Identify and access appropriate software for the task

4.7

Distinguish between documents/files and executable applications and appreciate the function of file extensions.

4.8

 Understand how to access existing files (text, database, spreadsheet, image, chart) Understand the need for accurate data entry in documents

4.9

Understand the need for using appropriate date and time formats

4.10

Understand the use and purpose of using codes for data entry

4.11

Understand importance of maintaining original proportions of images and charts

4.12

Understand concept of good spreadsheet design, refer to data entered in cells rather than re-entering, enter formulas from left to right, top to bottom where appropriate.

4.13

Understand the use and purpose of not replicating zero values over blank cells

4.14

Understand how amendments to data may affect dependent formulae and appreciate the uses of this in the efficient modelling and projection of data

4.15

Understand how to minimise the risk of attack by Viruses

4.16

Know the importance of Backups, and different methods to create and maintain records (Full/ incremental backups, rotation of files, grandfather/ father/ son)

5.

International aspects

5.1

Understand how to insert special characters particularly where relevant to foreign languages

5.2

Understand how to spell-check using a foreign language

5.3

Have a knowledge of international computer qualifications

6.

Application Selection

6.1

Understand how to sort data maintaining the integrity of corresponding data. Know the limitations of packages in doing this

6.2

Understand limitations of spreadsheets when used as a database (sorting doesn’t maintain record integrity, all data is held in memory, maximum 3 levels of sort)

6..3

Understand the use and purpose of various field types (text, number, date/ time, currency, auto number)

6.4

Understand the use of OR between two fields and within a field 6.5Understand the use and purpose of using combined logical and range operators when defining search criteria (Boolean Logic)6.6Understand the use of wild cards when searching for data

7.

Presenting Information

7.1

Understand the use and purpose of calculated fields

7.2

Understand the effects on data of different types of sorting (alphabetical, numeric, chronological)

7.3

Understand the purpose and effect of formatting numeric data (percentage, date, time, negative, currency, general)

7.4

Understand the use and purpose of headers and footers

7.5

Understand the use of fields in headers and footers

7.6

Understand the concept of standard documents and use of styles to create uniform documents.

7.7

Understand the use and importance of style sheets for consistent formatting of text (typeface, size, weight etc)

7.8

Distinguish between exploding pie charts, bar/ column charts, line-column graphs and XY scatter graphs and understand when to use them

7.9

Understand the importance of emphasising particular data