eAssessment is changing the way Pharmacy delivers exams
There are some things we simply can’t achieve with traditional paper-based exams. That’s why the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences was quick to embrace the rollout of eAssessment.
Like every other profession, pharmacy is reliant on electronically-accessed records more than ever. It makes sense that in an exam environment our students be able to access electronic records and find information on the web - just as if they were in a real workplace.
Trialling BYOD for both in-semester tests and end of semester exams has been proof of concept that eAssessment will afford us scale at little cost.
The benefits have far outweighed the time we’ve spent supporting the transition. Students have been enthusiastic about the switch to a digital environment, and it has turned marking from an inefficient process reliant on a physical scriptbook to a much leaner and more agile process in which anyone authorised with a log-on can undertake marking. All of our coordinators from last semester commented how much easier they found it.
eAssessment also offers the future possibility of students being able to look at simulations of patient-pharmacist interactions in order to develop a better understanding of communication strategies. That kind of multimedia functionality is something we couldn’t do with traditional paper-based exams.
Above all, eAssessment is a natural, easy step for our students. It fits with their expectations of a modern education, as well our pursuit of more authentic assessment.
Author:
Ian Larson, Director of Learning and Teaching, Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences