Diploma in Digital Applications
| Acronym | DiDA |
|---|---|
| Type | Technical education |
| Administrator | Edexcel |
| Year started | 2004 (pilot) 2005 |
| Year terminated | 2020 |
| Duration | 2 years |
| Offered | Annually |
| Restrictions on attempts | Four moderation windows |
| Regions | England Wales Northern Ireland Isle of Man |
| Languages | English language |
| Annual number of test takers | 200,000 students (2007) |
| Website | Edexcel: DiDA |
In England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, the Diploma in Digital Applications (DiDA) was an optional information and communication technology (ICT) course, usually studied by Key Stage 4 or equivalent school students (aged 14–16). DiDA was introduced in 2005 (after a pilot starting in 2004) as a creation of the Edexcel examination board. DiDA was notable for its time in that it consisted entirely of coursework, completed on-computer; all work relating to the DiDA course was created, stored, assessed and moderated digitally. In the late 2000s it was generally taught as a replacement for GCSE ICT, and the GNVQ which had been withdrawn in 2007.
DiDA faced controversy in its lifetime, over its focus on producing documentation instead of more creative or high level ICT projects. According to the Wolf report it was primarily taught by schools to inflate league table scores as it was the equivalent of studying four GCSEs at once. This was addressed by a revised version from 2012, but student enrolments collapsed from 200,000 students on the original to 6,000 in 2016. It was discontinued in 2020.