Di joined the Unit as a coder(*1) and her comments and queries about
the process were so thoughtful that she was brought into the Unit so
that we could harvest her contribution more directly.
Di now occupies the position held by Beryl Parkes of Data Preparation
Manager, running the "Engine Room" of dispatching and receiving parcels,
distributing and collecting coding(*1), allocating and marshalling
punching(*2), running and posting school reports, chasing late schools
and logging and reporting all this work.
Some 300-500 schools go through
the books each year together with a variety of other data-processing
work that we contract to do for other organisations[LINK].
(*1) Coding: turning young people's responses into numbers and looking
for inconsistent responses. Most of our coders work from home.
(*2) Punching: typing numbers into the computer (from the days when punch cards were used)