Preparing and assessing examinations is no easy feat, let alone when this process needs to be transcribed to a new, remote system. It involves a lot of members not just from the academic field, but also the ones who work behind the scenes, such as the administrative and technical staff working either within the academic entities themselves or within central administration.
In a collaborative environment such as WISEflow, it is much easier to involve course instructors, assistant professors and every individual who was involved in mentoring and teaching students, thereby systematically improving the assessment process in general.
Prof. Jean Calleja Agius, Head of Department of Anatomy within the Faculty of Medicine & Surgery, said this ability to customise the reviewing process has been integral in her Department鈥檚 decision to use this software.
When did you start using WISEflow and for what purposes?
I still remember very clearly that fateful day in mid-April of 2020. We had the landmark online meeting where the very first group of academics were invited for this presentation by , where the developers of WISEflow were introducing their product to us. From then on, there was no looking back, and both within the Faculty and externally, we started seeking each other鈥檚 support in order to understand how to make full use of it.
How many exams are being conducted by the Department through WISEflow?
In Semester 2 of the academic year of 2019/2020, the Department of Anatomy had practically all the exams on WISEflow (17 in total), ranging from multiple choice questions, extended matching questions, essays, spotting, etc (the only exceptions were a couple of modules which were servicing units where the respective Faculties involved were more conservative and preferred to switch to assignments on VLE). In the September resit sessions, my Department co-ordinated 34 exams using WISEflow.
How easy was it to navigate through WISEflow?
There was the whole spectrum of IT saviness among the members of my Department, but we managed to work together and did numerous internal tutorials for both academics and students to instruct how to use WISEflow.
We developed a hybrid model for the board of examinations (BOEs), where the exam paper was first reviewed through an online BOE and then the co-ordinator inputted the final paper on WISEflow, being checked again by the HOD as Chairperson and also by the Manager.
Another issue was the fact that the exams on WISEflow, which are meant to be taken on site, was being used by the students unsupervised at home, meaning that technically this was an open book exam.
Therefore, following internal discussions and after informing the students well in time before the exams, modifications were done to the assessment method, for example changing to case-based type of MCQs, decreasing the time allotted for the spotting within proven reasonable limits, changing MCQs to short answer questions, and now even introducing proctoring via Zoom.
For the February exam session, the Department of Anatomy is co-ordinating 2 exams that are being done on WISEflow, and these will be proctored via Zoom.
In my opinion, WISEflow is a very useful platform when used in a proctored environment, ideally on site. Although it still needs to continue to be developed further to make it even more user-friendly and personalise it to the different needs required for diverse modes of assessment, I am sure that with our IT colleagues, the Office of the Registrar and UM academics, the product can be further developed to suit the needs of UM, so that, even once the pandemic is over, WISEflow has the potential to become one of the main exam platforms.
What kind of assistance was offered to you to facilitate the use of WISEflow?
As the Semester 2 exams in 2020 started inching closer, the UM, thanks to the Office of the Registrar and the HR training, organised a series of online training sessions for all members of staff, which was very helpful to clear issues that we were encountering. However, the sense of community among the academics and administrators both within the Department, and intra- and inter-Faculty and peer support was especially helpful and brought us together at this very particular difficult time of isolation. I found the help that I got locally especially important in personalising the individual issues related to our very particular mode of assessment.
This is part of a series of testimonials on the use of WISEflow. This campaign is a collaborative effort by the Marketing, Communications & Alumni Office, the Office for Human Resources Management & Development, the Office of the Registrar and IT services.
For a list of available resources and upcoming training sessions on WISEflow, please visit this dedicated webpage.
