RSA III word processing

gettingready

anamenottaken wrote: »

1 The NHS is, in my experience, one employer which does ask for ECDL specifically - for administrative jobs in general, not just secretarial ones. However it demonstrates an ability to use various applications (not just text processing) and general IT knowledge. It does not test real useful speed in using these applications. (I write as a former ECDL trainer/script marker.)

Agree with ECDL comments - again a former ECDL TRainer/Test Centre Manager that moved her NHS Trust away from ECDL and to MOS.

MOS - again does not test speed but is much more useful to be honest.

BUT - ECDL is the one that NHS very often asks for as there was a major intake for this few years back (it was free for NHS staff to do).

Housework*Fairy

gettingready wrote: »

Agree with ECDL comments - again a former ECDL TRainer/Test Centre Manager that moved her NHS Trust away from ECDL and to MOS.

MOS - again does not test speed but is much more useful to be honest.

BUT - ECDL is the one that NHS very often asks for as there was a major intake for this few years back (it was free for NHS staff to do).

What is MOS? (Ignore, I have just googled it).

That's another one I have never heard of and is now on the list of things for Housework Fairy to do :-D

slenderkitten

Housework*Fairy wrote: »

Just thought I would let you know how I have got on.

Keynet e-mailed me back quoting £270 for the course, plus £14.99 P+P, plus the exam fee that I would have to take at an external testing centre.

I rang another local college this morning and was put through to a skills workshop. The reason I could not find RSA III WP when I searched is because it's now called OCR Text processing level 3. They do the text processing award (which is the core module 'copy typing' plus one optional unit Audio, word processing and document presentation) or the text processing certificate which is all units. The total cost of this is £185 + £68.80 for the exam. It's also in a workshop so I can spend as much time as I wish at the workshop and then they will enter me for the exam. So I am going along on Thursday to enrol and they are open on a Saturday morning.

I also signed up to Vision2Learn to do an NVQ in Business admin. I'm awaiting to hear from them.

There is also a learn direct place where I can do ECDL but I'm going to concentrate on my Word processing and NVQ first

I emailed them as it didn't not say on their website if it was NVQ or otherwise, what level is it? I am interested in doing it, but I don't have a job at the moment, any help you can provide would be great.

PasturesNew

I used to teach RSA III. I've not seen an employer want it, or ask for it at all, for well over 20 years.

At the time the main differences between II and III were the overall speed you needed in order to complete the exam paper, creating more complex tables, typing more complex/longer documents and being able to read/decipher bad hand-writing and automatically correct the spelling and grammar mistakes as you went.

Most of those differences are irrelevant since they invented powerful WYSIWYG word processors such as Word.

I'd advise anybody to not bother with it.... if it still exists, unless it just happens to be tacked onto the end of a long course where you go as far as you can within (say) a year. e.g. at secretarial college.

slenderkitten

PasturesNew wrote: »

I used to teach RSA III. I've not seen an employer want it, or ask for it at all, for well over 20 years.

At the time the main differences between II and III were the overall speed you needed in order to complete the exam paper, creating more complex tables, typing more complex/longer documents and being able to read/decipher bad hand-writing and automatically correct the spelling and grammar mistakes as you went.

Most of those differences are irrelevant since they invented powerful WYSIWYG word processors such as Word.

I'd advise anybody to not bother with it.... if it still exists, unless it just happens to be tacked onto the end of a long course where you go as far as you can within (say) a year. e.g. at secretarial college.

My local college offers it. At this level it is more geared to secretaries and perhaps pa's.

I am doing the OCR/RSA level 3 diploma business professional. I have to do word / text processing, mail merge, audio typing, speed typing, power point. I have passed three got the other three to go. The speed test is not that easy despite the fact that I have been touch typing for 17 years and that my WPM is 70. Lets face it they all use different sites to test you on, so who knows what the true figure is. To do it in the 10 mins they want for 65 wpm with only 6 mistakes is difficult at the moment for me. If I were working I would have to pay over £1,000 to do this course, so I am glad I did not have to.

I would say unless you're going for secretarial type of work leave it at OCR / RSA level 2 in word and text processing.

I would have loved to have learned Shorthand, they don't do it at college, stopped it before I first attended in the 90's. I'm thinking of self teaching it or perhaps paying for it.

Deep_In_Debt

I remember doing RSA III many moons ago on a manual typewriter before Word Processors or computers!

LittleVoice

Deep_In_Debt wrote: »

I remember doing RSA III many moons ago on a manual typewriter before Word Processors or computers!

Me too.

Tables and centring were the best things. All that counting up of characters, ruling lines in red, counting lines to centre on a page, using foolscap paper for some work and quarto, sixmo or octavo for others.