week 1

CS1 - Communicate information clearly to a technical and non-technical audience

Exam Terminology and requirements

all of your work should be completed electronically using black font, Arial size 12pt unless otherwise specified

any work not produced electronically must be agreed with your tutor, in which case the evidence you produce should be scanned and submitted as an electronic piece of evidence

all your work should be clearly labelled with the relevant task number and your student details and be legible (for example, front page and headers)

electronic files should be named using the following format –Surname_Initial_student number_evidence reference for example Smith_J_123456789_Task1 for identification purposes; where evidence reference is shown, this should be replaced with the task number for which the work reflects and saved in a .pdf format

all pages of your work should be numbered in the format ‘Page X of Y’, where X is the page number and Y is the total number of pages

you must complete and sign the external assessment cover sheet (EACS) and include it at the front of your assessment task evidence

you must submit your evidence to the supervisor at the end of each session

Practical Activity – “Bridging the Communication Gap”

Scenario (Workplace Context)
You are part of a digital support team at a medium-sized UK company that is upgrading its network infrastructure. Two different stakeholder groups need to be informed about the progress and changes:

1.Technical Stakeholders – the IT Department (high digital literacy, comfortable with technical terminology, formal communication style).
2. Non-Technical Stakeholders – the Customer Services Team (basic digital literacy, non-technical, prefer informal but clear communication).

Task Steps

Step 1 – Identify Stakeholder Requirements (15 minutes)

In pairs, using given a stakeholder profile sheet describing each group (technical and non-technical).
You must highlight:
  - Terminology suitable for each group.
  - Formal vs informal tone.
  - Level of digital knowledge.
  - Preferred communication channels (e.g., email, presentation, meeting notes).

Non Technical Stakeholder
Technical Stakeholder

Step 2 – Plan the Communication (20 minutes)
Plan two separate communications about the same update:

- Technical Audience: Write a short technical update (e.g., “Server downtime due to VLAN reconfiguration”).
- Non-Technical Audience: Rewrite the same update in plain English (e.g., “Our systems will be offline this Friday while we improve network security”).

In your plan you must include:
Required format (e.g., email, slides, chat tool).
Frequency of updates (one-off, weekly progress).
Content & Context:
   - Layout and design (bullet points, images, plain text).
  - Level of detail (deep vs simple).
  - Digital inclusion (accessible fonts, alternative formats if needed).
  - Compliance (data protection, company policy, GDPR).

Step 3 – Apply Tools (25 minutes)

Using collaborative tools available in college (e.g., Google Slides/Docs, MS Teams, Trello, or Padlet), students create:
1. A short slide deck or formal email draft for the IT Department.
2. A poster, infographic, or simplified email for the Customer Services Team.


Step 4 – Deliver & Record (15 minutes)
Students present their outputs to the class.

Another pair plays is the role of the “stakeholder audience” and provides feedback on clarity, tone, and accessibility.
You will then summarise the key points of communication in a one-page communication log, including how you would securely store this record in line with GDPR (e.g., stored in encrypted company drive, not personal devices).

Reflection Task (10–15 minutes)
Complete a short reflection in their learning journal or worksheet:

What differences did you notice between writing for a technical vs non-technical audience?
Which tools did you find most effective for communicating with each audience, and why?
How did you ensure your communication was inclusive and compliant with legislation (e.g., GDPR, accessibility guidelines)?
If you repeated this task in the workplace, what would you improve?

Exam Scenario and task 

Scenario

You are working as an IT support technician for Willow Technology.

Willow Technology is a digital marketing and design agency which currently operates from offices in Southampton and has recently opened a satellite office in York. Currently, as new members of staff join the business, computers are purchased ad hoc and joined to the network. There are a mixture of different operating systems and software in use throughout the business, and there are concerns about licensing and out-of-date software on each computer.

For staff to be able to work effectively, they need access to word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software as well as an effective email client/calendaring solution and web browsing.

Design staff require access to software that will allow image and video editing, document production and PDF editing. With the growth in the business, there is an urgent need to provide consistency of software to allow users to share documents easily and simplify support. It is also important that any computer needs to be up to date so that software can be installed. Computers need to be compatible with internet applications for moderate internet use. All installed software needs to be kept up to date as a matter of course.

Following the office relocation and movement of equipment, one computer that has been relocated is now having connectivity issues when trying to access network resources. The computer has been brought to you for assistance and is now failing to boot at all.

Brief

As part of your role, you are involved in both larger IT projects as well as providing immediate technical support diagnostics and assistance to technical issues experienced by end users. You are due to work on a major roll-out project but must make sure that individual issues are resolved as they are logged.

You have been asked to investigate 2 helpdesk tasks relating to computer issues within the business, identifying and remedying the faults.

Once you have resolved the individual issues, you will need to focus on the larger project and will need to research and propose an effective solution to ensure all company computers are running with a consistent operating system and software build that meets the different requirements of staff within the business. You should also plan and show how this will be rolled out to all users.

Task 1: 2 hours 30 minutes

You must read the information on all pages provided for this task before starting your response. (22 marks)

Scenario

You are working with a colleague who is new to Willow Technology and you have been assigned 2 helpdesk tasks. The first helpdesk task requires you to troubleshoot and resolve the issue with computer 1. The user of the first computer has explained that they are trying to access the internet using the Google Chrome browser but keep getting the following message:

This site can’t be reached. The web page at xxxxx might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

The second helpdesk task requires you to support your colleague by undertaking a root cause analysis and then designing a test plan to propose changes so your colleague would be able to carry out the appropriate tests and check if the fault has been resolved with computer 2.

The second computer is failing to boot at all and is only beeping when turned on. The computer is a Dell OptiPlex 5040 and when listening, you hear a sequence of 4 beeps, 3 beeps and then 1 beep.

Instructions for students

Computer 1

You have been provided with computer 1 and should investigate and identify the root cause of the connectivity issue.

You should document your troubleshooting steps, identifying the issue and consider:

- use of troubleshooting frameworks

- tools used during the troubleshooting process Your troubleshooting document (6 marks) should include the following:

- user details

- test dates

- proposed tests

- expected outcomes of tests

- ability to record changes based on test outcomes

- record of diagnosis

Computer 2

Using the information in the scenario and the internet, you should identify the root cause of the hardware failure and propose a remedy. You should design a test plan that could be followed by your colleague to test that your proposed changes have resolved the fault. You are not required to undertake the tests.

Your test plan (16 marks) should include the following:

- user details

- test dates

- proposed tests

- expected outcomes of tests

- ability to record changes based on test outcomes

- user acceptance of work completed

Evidence required for submission

- a troubleshooting document in .pdf format

- a test plan document in .pdf format

When you have completed this task, you should save in a .pdf format, and name your file: Surname_Initial_student number_evidence reference for example

Last Updated
2025-10-17 13:05:15