Download the 2010-2011 Annual Report - VTAC

Tertiary Admission RankATAR calculated:47000 +3%Studies scaled:1143%Australian Tertiary Admission Rank(ATAR)To assist tertiary institutions in selecting students VTAC providesan overall measure of each student’s performance across all theirYear 12 studies. This overall measure is called the Australian TertiaryAdmission Rank (ATAR). The ATAR provides a way of rankingstudents that is fair to students even though they have taken differentstudies. All VCE Study Scores are scaled by VTAC to adjust for thefact that it is more difficult to obtain a high study score in somestudies than others. The scaled Study Scores are called ATAR SubjectScores. In 2010 there was a three per cent increase in both thenumber of ATARs calculated and the number of studies scaled.ATAR and VCE results online serviceVTAC provides a number of methods for students to obtain theirATAR: telephone interactive voice response (IVR); telephone shortmessage service (SMS); and online. In addition a printed statementwas also provided to students who applied for courses throughVTAC.VTAC and the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authorityoperate a single online-portal for students to obtain their VCEresults and ATAR. The service provides students with a single accesspoint for both their VCE results (released by the VCAA) and ATAR(released by VTAC).2010 saw an increase in the use of mobile phones to access the webservice. In 2009, access by mobiles was 4%, almost all of which wasiPhone. In 2010 the mobile access was 12.5%, with Apple iPhone,iPod and iPad dominating (11.5%).In 2010 browser and operating system combinations were verydiverse. Users of Safari and Firefox combined (49.7%) exceededusers of Internet Explorer (39.3%). The increase in successful loginson a variety of browsers and operating systems has been attributedto accessibility improvements of the online service.SMS and telephone servicesSMS requests have steadily increased over the past three years whilecalls to the IVR service have dropped significantly over the past twoyears. Total calls in 2010 have dropped to under 50% of 2007 levelsdue to increased uptake of the SMS and online services.Of the 1493 telephone calls, 1301 (87.1%) were received on thefirst day of the service. It is likely that towards the end of the week,the main callers were those who expected changes to be applied totheir information.Method 2007 2008 2009 2010Telephone 3137 7777* 1729 1493SMS 17520 18200 20418 23540TOTALS 20657 25977 22147 25033* The spike in calls to the IVR service in 2008 is attributed to problems accessing the website.OutboundSMS (2010)PUSH 1resultsPULL 2resultsRegistrationconfirmationInvalidID or PINTOTALTOTALS 33148 982 19820 5618 59568InboundSMS (2010)Pre-launch registrations Post-launch 3 TOTALTOTALS 19809 609 204181. PUSH is where the service “pushes” an SMS of VCE results and ATAR to the students who had registered forthe service prior to the specified time and date. These figures include additional messages sent following resultsamendments by VCAA and VTAC.2. PULL is where students registered after the service had opened and then were able to “pull” their VCE results andATAR from the server.3. Includes pre-launch registered users who also used the pull serviceSMS:34%(since 2007)Telephone:52%(since 2007)15% in thepast year14% in thepast yearTelephonecalls 20106.00- 7.007.00- 8.008.00- 9.009.00- 10.0010.00- 11.0011.00- 12.0012.00- 13.0013.00- 14.0014.00- 15.0015.00- 16.0016.00- 17.0017.00- 18.0018.00- 19.0019.00- 20.0020.00- 21.0021.00- 22.0022.00- 23.0023.00- 0.00Calls per hourTotal calls(cumulative)27 342 172 142 163 113 83 53 42 36 36 28 29 9 9 11 6 01% 11% 6% 5% 5% 4% 3% 2% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%27 369 541 683 846 959 1042 1095 1137 1173 1209 1237 1266 1275 1284 1295 1301 13012% 28% 42% 52% 65% 74% 80% 84% 87% 90% 93% 95% 97% 98% 99% 99.5% 100% 100%20 Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) Annual Report 2010-2011 21