Because of the recent outbreak of COVID-19, many medical schools are now adopting on-line exams using the existing software available across continents. The College of Medicine at Alfaisal University situated at Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia uses ExamSoft, a program to achieve digital success with the exam security that we need, the efficiency we want, and the assessment data necessary to improve student learning outcomes.
We are very proud to announce that Alfaisal medical students have recently taken unsupervised exams from home which could be the first time in the world. College of Medicine delivered the offline, unsupervised at-home assessment for year-1 medical students on Thursday March 12, 2020 and for year 4&5 on Tuesday, March 17, 2020.
Assessments included different varieties of questions such as multiple choice, short answer, essay type and point-on-image; all delivered using ExamSoft offline assessment platform. Each exam constituted clinical scenario based questions that lasted for several hours duration. Despite being unsupervised, shuffling of all questions including choice options with no backward navigation as well keeping all justified limited duration of assessment ensured that the entire assessment process could strengthen students’ abilities to fulfill our teaching learning outcome for becoming safe physicians. Primary objective of at home assessment is to continue students learning experience that is uninterrupted during the special circumstances created by COVID-19 pandemic.
