The IB has recently announced changes to the admin and upload procedures for IA Investigations Group 4 subjects including Biology.

In summary these are the changes:

• No need to upload 4/PSOW any more - but you should keep a verson of this in case the IB moderator asks.
• No need to upload the 4/IA form - the tick boxes are now replaced by something on the eCoursework upload system.
• The form 4/ICCC has been changed. There is now a new form on the OCC. It has no second page, and the student signature box is gone.
• The candidate name or number should not be visible on the students work - for anonymity of marking.
  (The file name can include the student's name / number as moderators can't see file names.)
• Candidate details will be attached to uploaded files on the eCoursework upload.
• Biology teachers / IB coordinator are asked to authenticate student work during the upload process which replaces the need for student to sign the 4/ICCC form. 
• It is the responsibility of schools to keep signed declarations of authenticity from each student for every item of coursework submitted. (see IB Coordinator's notes, February 2016 )
• Marks for each student's IA Investigation are uploaded onto the IB 'IBIS' website and then 'dynamic sampling' takes place which selects the student work required for a moderation sample. 
• After generating the sample the breakdown of the score for each student in the sample is entered in a form.
• Only the moderation sample needs to be uploaded.  For a class of 6 to 20 students this will be 5 investigations.
• Scripts can be annotated using visible comments. Avoid pop-up comments as they won't appear on the moderator's screen
• Word comments, PDF comments, written annotations or a table justifying the grades can be added to the student script. 
• It doesn't matter if these comments take the number of pages over 12.

One real advantage of uploading the investigations is that the IB can now submit moderators to the same system of monitoring as examiners.  One in ten investigations the moderator will see will be a "seed" - an investigation previously moderated by a senior moderator.  If this is moderated out of tollerance (+/- a few marks) then the moderator will receive further guidance before continuing.  

According to the IB coordinators notes the teacher's marking will also be allowed a certain 'tollerance' before adjustments are made. Hopefully this will result in fewer adjustments to our IA grades and more specific feedback on the marking discrepencies.

There are several places to find the information directly from the IB: I strongly advise this.

NEW information released mid Feb 2016 - for summer 2016.
Upload details for Group 4 science subjects for the May 2016 examination session – Internal Assessment (Feb 2016)

IB Coordinator's notes, February 2016 - has a long section on group 4 uploading and checking authenticity

Handbook of procedures for the Diploma Programme 2016

May 2016 - eCoursework user guide (for teachers)

There are a few places where the information had not yet been changed when I looked on 17th Feb.

• In the Biology teacher support material - Frequently asked Questions
• In the Biology guide for 2016 exams

Thanks to Chris Hamper, author of the Inthinking Physics site for proof reading this post and his suggesstions on teacher comments.