achieving paperless examinations in the college

Achieving Paperless Examinations in the

CollegeTraining of Trainers Workshop,

Sunday, 6th October 2019, Ibadan.

Dr Kayode ODUSOTE, FWACP, Faculty of Internal Medicine.

What is a paperless examination?

An examination during which the use of paper is at barest minimum without compromising its integrity, credibility, security and fairness.

Achieving Paperless Examinations in WACP 2

The paperless global trend – Aims to Find information faster – electronic documents

are easier to file and find; full text search is possible.

Automate manual process – share documents for review, editing and archiving; automate data capture.

Save on storage space and cost.Save environment – reduce carbon footprint;

save the planet from global warming.Achieving Paperless Examinations in WACP 3

Historical perspective West African Postgraduate Medical College (WAPMC), of

which WACP and WACS are its Constituent Colleges, was responsible for the organization and coordination of the Fellowship Examinations of the two Colleges until 2000.

In 1992, WAPMC had no computer (only one Olympia manual typewriter).

Communication was by fixed telephone lines and (slow) postal service.

E-mail services were limited to very few early adopters and was by telephone dial-up.


Historical perspective – challenges of paper use. Large volumes of paper were used as documents

had to be retyped even if corrections were not major.

Storage examination answer scripts and MCQ/Objective Question/Answer papers.

Storage of personal and examination files of the candidates.

Postage and storage of dissertation proposals and accepted dissertation and case books (in 3 copies).


Historical perspective – solutions implemented. Purchase of computer system for the Secretary. Purchase of scantron machine with computer system

– started computer-aided examination system. MCQ/Objective question papers were destroyed

immediately after the examination. Obtained Council approval to destroy examination

scripts after five years and later after 3 years. Purchase paper shredder and stopped burning of old

examination scripts.Achieving Paperless Examinations in WACP 6

Historical perspective – advances in twenty-first century. Computerization of the administrative process and

lately of the registration and administration of the examination.

Continuous review of the Examination process with most of the examinations being MCQ format and very few essay type examinations.

Taking advantage of global technological advancement: Mobile telephone E-mail service and its widespread use by trainees and

examiners.


Current challenges of paper use in the College MCQ question papers still printed and used though

shredded after examination. Dissertation proposals, as well as Dissertations and

Case Books for examinations still submitted in printed form, posted to assessors and process in paper form.

Bound accepted Dissertations and Case Books still submitted (though with an electronic copy on CD) and stored in paper form.


Current challenges of paper use in the College (2)

Dissertation Proposals in printed booklets are sent by courier service to assessors and returned by same route after review.

Dissertations and Case Books for examinations are sent by courier service to examiners.

Bulky personal files of Fellowship trainees often containing dissertation proposals that have been or being processed.


Available solutions to achieving paperless examinations

1. Online computer-based examinations.2. Online computer-aided examinations.3. Computer-aided review and

commentary.4. Computer-aided assessment and

scoring.


Online Computer-based examinations


Introduction Suitable for MCQ and objective structured

examinations, large number of students and multiple examination centres.

Main objective is to efficiently evaluate the candidate fairly through a fully automated system that: Saves a lot of time Gives swift results Is trustworthy Is credible


Description

Structure: Client/Server Network that runs an application-based system or a web-based system or a hybrid of both systems.

Components: Usually have at least two modules –Teacher management platform – question bank;

test paper management; statistical management and parameter management.

Examination system


Desirable features

Secure loginMulti-instructorRandom question selectionRandom question distributionRandom choice distributionResumption capabilityPortability


Advantages of computer marking

Marking is consistent and accurate (provided the application is running correctly).

Reduces work load for the examiners especially with large number of candidates.

Marks are correctly returned with no error of collation or transcribing result of a candidate to another.

Statistical analysis of result is fast and reliable. Scripts and records are not lost.Achieving Paperless Examinations in WACP 16

Challenges of online examination systems

Power failure Network failure Computer crash Network security – hacking Virus infection Initial cost of system Maintaining a large bank of questions


Computer-based Test System by Fagbola et. al. (2013) Features:

Secure login

Multi-instructor

Random question selection

Automatic log-off upon expiration of allowed time

Automatic submission

Automatic marking

Generation of report of the results


Computer-based Test System by Fagbolaet. al. (2013) (2)


Question upload



Candidate login



Question and time



Examination Score


Achieving Paperless Examinations in WACP 23Examination Result Summary

Online computer-aided examinations


Introduction Suitable for essay type examination when examiner

evaluation is required. There are very few systems in use. CAPES – of the National Information Centre, India:

Uses optical memory technology (especially CD-ROM) to store large amount of data of optimally designed questions and answers.

Minimal manpower required for supervision and security of examination.

PEXA – commercial service by LittleMore Innovation Labs, Singapore.


PEXA Paperless Examination Advantage (PEXA) cloud

ecosystem and DigiTaal, a state-of-art hardware, custom-built for writing descriptive examination: eliminated paper from entire process, reduced examination cycle-time, increased security and safety in execution of examination,

assessment and publishing of the results.

It is a cloud-based service that delivers question papers and answer sheets online.

Answers are distributed to examiners and entire scripts need not be distributed to one examiner.


DigiTaal Student Tablet


Computer-aided review and commentary.


Introduction

Major contributors to use of paper in the examination format of the College are: Dissertation proposals that are evaluated by at least one

assessor and approved before the study can be done.

Dissertations submitted for the Fellowship examinations.

Case Books submitted for the Fellowship examinations.

These require review, corrections and comments.

Assessors/Examiners corrections and comments are entered into the text of the documents.


Computerization as a solution

Microsoft Word (MSWord) has become the International standard and tool for text processing.

All recent versions of MSWord have in-built facility for review of documents that allows tracking of modifications (additions and deletions) by multiple users and these can be accepted or rejected and then saved.

Comments can be added by multiple users and saved to the document.


How To: Document info page


How To: Comments Personalized


How To: Personalize the document


How To: Save document for review/editing


How To: Select and use review ribbon


How To: Track changes setup


How To: Track changes setup - view (2)


How To: Track changes setup - options (3)


How To: Track changes setup – accept options (4)


How To: Track changes setup – reject options (5)


How To: Add Comments



View Document with changes tracked and comments added

How To: Accept Changes, Save and Send


How To: Compare Documents


How To: Compare Documents (2)


Computer-aided assessment and scoring.


Introduction

Apart from reviewing and making comments on Proposals, Dissertations and Case Book, assessors and examiners are expected to grade the work and make recommendations.

Many Faculties now have structured forms for doing this and these are in paper form to be filled by hand.

Computerized forms make it easier to fill and send by email.


Introduction (2)

Two common applications for making computer fillable forms are: Microsoft Word (MSWord)

Adobe Acrobat Pro (Acrobat)

MSWord is available to most if not all but converting a Document to a Fillable Form is not easy.

Acrobat is not commonly available, is NOT free but has automatic conversion, which makes it easier to use.


MSWord Fillable Form


Acrobat Fillable Form


CONCLUSION Computer technology and Internet communication

now make it possible to achieve paperless examinations.

It is easiest for MCQ/Objective structured examinations.

In migrating to paperless examinations, consider: Is there a need? What is the cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness? Is it sustainable?

“If it is not broken, don’t fix it.”Achieving Paperless Examinations in WACP 54