Online System for Clinical Assessment - University of Edinburgh

The College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine's Learnign Technology Section at the University of Edinburgh developed the Online System for Clinical Assessment in-house. It was originally designed for some of the OCSEs (objective, structured, clinical examinations).

teh traditional OCSEs were very time and resource intensive requiring different stations for different clinical assessment with exams (extending over two days). The online evaluations could replace some of these stations and provide a secure setting for testing the same competencies and skills.

The case study state sthat the "drivers for adopting an online approach were:
1. to reduce the possibility for students collusion
2. to reduce costs of running OSCEs whch are extremely expensive
3. to provide a system-based standard for marking
4. to reduce the complex administration underpinning assessment processes
5. to address the growing sense that existing assessment structures were not capturing as accurate a picture of student ability as was possible."

The first cohort to use OSCA were given a mock exam to familiarize them with the system and also to test the system. Students are now shown a video to introduce them to the system.

Student feeedback is positive and they find the system interface and navigation is clear. The use of OSCA has reduced the resources needed to adniminister the exams with a reduction in staff time and physical space required. Becasue exams can be completed in two back-to-back sessions the chances of student collusion has been significantly reduced. There is a grwoign bank of questions for future use.

The training required by staff could be seen as a drawback especially if smaller institutions were to consider following this route. As the system is implemented more widely the need for more secure physical spaces suitable for onine exams could also be restrictive.

Once again the case study demonstrates the need for new technologies to be well funded and developed for specific needs in specific populations. The development process and training and support needed is significant. Once the technolgies have been fine-tuned and staff are comfortable with them there seems to be more interest in using them across the institutions.