This article describes how to run an OSCE examination


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preparations

Here is a checklist for the examination day:

  • Printed ID tags, if you selected a Anonymous ID examination, to be attached to each student
  • Be sure to have a number of extra Exam Admins, if something happens to one of the ordinary examiners
  • Have a master clock/or a schedule, distributed to each stations (every station has an internal timer, in each station)
  • Examiners should be logged in to the system and have their station selected on the screen, the tab Marking should be selected.

The menus

The Marking menu

  • All examiners should be here, and selected their station, by clicking the button Mark station



The Overview menu

  • This screen is for the OSCE exam admin staff, the person responsible for the entire examination. The menu describes how status of the examination.



The List submissions menu

  • This screen is for the OSCE exam admin staff, to control the details from a specific submission



The Settings menu

This screen is for the OSCE exam admin staff, Close the examination

  • To close the examination, click the Close exam button (it is important to control that all stations has been completed, before pressing this button. By clicking this button you get access to the Grading menu



Run a station

When you are going to do exams with multiple assessments, the following functions are available:


  • When you create a station, you can also specify how many assessments per candidate you expect. This means that for the first time we know when an assessment is one too many, and also when an exam is complete, which allows us to provide better feedback in the interface:
  • The donut chart in the overview now shows not only how many candidates have been assessed, but how many have 1 or 2, 3 assessments if more are expected, and shows in red if there is someone who has too many assessments.
  • In the Overview tab, if you specify that you want to show "markings", it is now not coloured from 0 to max, but from 0 to the expected number, and red above the expected number
  • In the results and overview, the candidate's best result at each station is no longer counted, but the sum of the points
  • List submissions still shows each assessment, but if you go to a station in the grading tab, you now first see an aggregate, and can click on a row to access individual assessments (if there is more than one)
  • It is not possible to close an exam as long as any candidate has more assessments than expected at a station, as this leads to incorrect results. Info about this is displayed instead of the close button. You are prompted to close the exam not when all candidates have been assessed, but when everyone has been assessed exactly the expected number of times.
  • The borderline calculation requires that each candidate has a grade on the global score scale. If you get two assessments with different global scores, you automatically get the lowest of the two in the borderline calculation. This is not necessarily the best way. One could imagine it being a setting of whether it should be best, worst, whether ambiguities should always give borderline, or whether it always requires a manual assessment. In any case, it does not affect the candidate directly, but only by affecting pass levels, and is irrelevant in an acute stage because our sharp exams with multiple assessments do not use borderline regression.
  • The setting at the form level that you can only make one submission per student has been given less prominence in the station overview. Instead, it shows how many assessments per candidate are expected, with a red mark if you expect more than one assessment, but have chosen a form that only allows one assessment. At a later stage, we expect to handle OSCE forms separately from assessment forms and this form-specific setting does not exist.

Timer

Examinator(s) with a student entering the station

  • The examinator/examinators select the correct student.
  • The internal timer starts, with two possible options, listed below:


Station without time setup=The time counts up, without limit


Station marked with a specific duration time= Time counts down to the set value,  after set duration, the time turn yellow &

starts to count negative time


Correct markings

The markings can be controlled under the Overview tab:



If you managed to mark to many forms for one station/student, you can correct this by clicking the red triangle for the specific student in the list. I window appears with the markings and time stamps. Click on the marking you want to control/edit/remove, in the list.



A new window appears for editing purposes: