Our recent visit to Blantyre coincided with student exams for the BSc Clinical Officer programmes. We were able to use this opportunity to deliver one of our project milestones; to successfully deliver a trial of computer based assessment for a summative exam.
11 students from BSc Anaesthesia completed their end of year assessment from one of the College of Medicine computer labs. The exam itself ran smoothly and has provided us with some useful insight for how these exams can be delivered in the future and how they can be managed.
Some of the benefits of electronic assessment include: automated marking, paper-free delivery, ease of navigation, easy to read and amend answers. The process of delivering this exam allowed us to look closely at the risks involved in running an exam from a computer lab, and highlight some of the decisions that will need to be made by the College of Medicine if they wish to continue to drive for electronic assessment in the future.
We have confirmed that a larger trial of the assessment technology will take place in November 2015.