RPLFor assessors
What an assessor should expect to find, and what they should ignore
Updated 8 November 2026 · Australia
If a candidate sends you a share code, you are not being asked to trust a progress bar. You are being handed a folder you can search. The bar is a convenience. The notes, the dates, the supervisor lines, and the gaps are the portfolio.
Suggested is not competent
The portfolio will show links a keyword pass or a model suggested. Some of them are right. Some of them are a confident miss. Your buttons are Accept link, Not this, and the judgement: competent or not yet, with a note. You do not get a button that uploads their evidence, and you should not want one. Authenticity gets worse when the assessor is also the author of the portfolio.
Record the note as if an auditor will read it next month. What you sighted. What was already covered up. What you still need to observe on site. The printed pack keeps that sentence next to the unit so it can sit with your RTO’s own assessment record. RPL is not that record unless your RTO decides to file it as one.
Search before you trust the percentage
Type the words the element actually cares about. Inspection opening. Tempering. Fall. Harness. If the search lands on a note with a site and a date, read it. If it lands on nothing, the percentage was counting a neighbouring job. Search exists so you do not have to trust the candidate’s folder structure, or ours.
Currency is visible. Work older than about three years stays in the portfolio and is marked old. That is deliberate. Deleting stale evidence to make a file look current would be the worse product.
Where this sits under the Standards
From 2025, providers must give students a way to seek recognition of prior learning. ASQA publishes the practice guide on RPL and credit transfer. Principles of assessment and the rules of evidence are yours to apply. This portfolio can show a date, a supervisor, and a gap. It cannot decide that the rules have been met. If you are unsure, read the guide and the unit on the National Training Register, not a marketing page.
Gap training assigned by an employer is a task list. It is not evidence that the task was done, and it is not your judgement. Look for the photo and the note that came back after the task. If they are not there, the unit is still open, however tidy the task list looks.
Open the portfolio they shared. Search the evidence. Record competent or not yet.
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