Editorial & verification policy

Source hierarchy

Claims that can materially affect assessed work — rubric criteria, mark allocations, word or page limits, assessment-session changes, deadlines and academic-integrity rules — should be checked against the strongest available primary source before publication.

1. Official IB material for current assessment rules and programme policy.
2. Official school or university material where the claim is about that institution rather than an IB-wide rule.
3. Peer-reviewed or reputable education research for contextual claims that are not official assessment rules.
4. Community material only for clearly labelled experience, examples or discovery — not as authority for an assessment rule.

Session and version discipline

The Diploma Programme changes by subject and assessment session. A page should name the applicable first-assessment year or exam session when the distinction matters. Old and new rubrics are not silently combined. Provisional statistical bulletins remain labelled provisional, and unpublished future grade boundaries are not presented as official facts.

Authorship and review

Guide pages identify the Diploma graduates who write and cross-check the material. Reviewer status does not imply employment by the IB, examiner status, or endorsement by the IB unless a page explicitly provides evidence for such a role.

iBacalao publishes only the reviewer identity details the team has chosen to make public; no additional credentials are inferred or invented.

Comparisons and product claims

iBacalao publishes some pages that compare its own product with alternatives. These are first-party commercial comparisons, not independent reviews. They must disclose that iBacalao is the publisher, keep the comparison limited to a stated use case, distinguish a competitor's public product description from features we have independently tested, preserve the last-checked date, and avoid claiming a feature is absent when our source review did not establish it.

Comparison pages do not assign star ratings or claim to summarize customer reviews. A named comparison is used only where the specific product and decision being compared are clear. Product details can change, so the linked comparison method and its review date are part of the page, not an independent endorsement of either product.

Customer reviews and testimonials

We do not write, simulate, or invent customer reviews, ratings, or testimonials. Before a first-person customer statement is published, its source must be an actual user with direct product experience, the wording and context must reflect that person's experience, and the person must agree to the identity details shown. Any material connection or incentive must be disclosed. Reviews are not conditioned on positive sentiment, and negative feedback is not excluded from a review collection because of its rating.

iBacalao does not currently include an aggregate customer rating in search markup because we have no verifiable review basis for one. Google supports review markup for software applications, but it must reflect actual review content. The FTC also distinguishes customer reviews from testimonials used as advertising. A testimonial on an iBacalao page is a first-party promotional statement, not an independent review.

Independence

iBacalao is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or approved by the International Baccalaureate Organization. Official IB sources are cited because they are the authority for IB programme and assessment rules, not because of a commercial relationship.