Untitled - Higher Education Academy

Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine Annual Report 2006-7
4 Themed Areas of Activity
4.1 Introduction
The majority of our activity in these areas will come in 2007-8. We plan to work as closely as possible
with HSaP in these three major areas, but both Centres had some work underway already.
4.2 Assessment, Plagiarism and Feedback
The Subject Centre has been instrumental in supporting the sector to introduce psychometric admissions
tests, and (with FDTL and other projects) consortia working on shared assessment processes (e.g.
UMAP; OCTAVE; UKCDR). Our assessment workshops in 2006-7 (Standard setting for undergraduate
medical educators; a beginners practical guide.; Training the OSCE examiners.; Standard setting for
undergraduate medical educators; a beginners practical guide. Introduction to on-line assessments for
learning and assessment.; New external examiners: A practical survival course; GMC visitor training:
Basic assessment; GMC visitor training: Advanced assessment. Teaching, learning and assessing
clinical skills, does one size fit all? ) are highly popular and always score excellently (e.g. the two
Standard Setting workshops scored 4.9/5; n=50) in participant evaluation feedback. We are working
with the St George’s Advanced Course in Medical Education Assessment 16 to provide more sophisticated
awareness of assessment issues, and offering one free place on this prestigious course.
“On the assessment side, I have sent a few people to the workshops. There was a considerable
resistance in bringing the assessments up to date, so I got quite a number of junior members of
staff sent to workshops and then wanting to try new things, this has considerably improved the
assessment methodology. We are in the process of designing the final year exams mainly due to
pressure from junior members of staff saying that the old style exams aren’t fit for purpose. There
has been a sea change in educational interest and this has really improved matters. The workshops
benefit is that there are only travel costs involved, the fact that they are free is a real bonus, so
people don’t lose money out of study leave, and this is a much more simple process to agree to
people attending.” (R4)
We have worked with the Academy in relation to the NSS (identifying a speaker for the NSS conference
in 2006) and run several workshops (Tools for feedback. and Moan, moan, moan. Complaints from
students: Opportunity, threat, or just a pain in the neck?) one of which was attended by representatives
from the QAA.
“We had a whole day on assessment here at the campus for medicine and dentistry, it was a very
useful day. It gave us a view of where people are going with OSCEs and other assessments, also
standard setting. It wasn’t earth shattering although the opportunity to talk to experts in the field was
very good. We had a working group between the College teaching group and Board of examiners,
and it was clear that medicine and dentistry were streets ahead of other parts of [], especially
traditional humanities” (R15).
We work with the Professional and Statutory Body Inter-regulatory Group on a range of issues including
‘Fitness to Practise’ which includes the notion of ‘assessment for assuring public safety’. We have run
over ten UMAP workshops (high quality item writing) for the sector since 2003.
We are planning to offer office facilities to the new Academy/JISC Academic Integrity Service in 2007-8
and have hosted one workshop in the area of Feedback. This is still an area of major concern for our
sector and we are working with the Academy on NSS-related activities.
4.3 Employer Engagement
The NHS is the biggest employer in our constituency, and this tends to be a dominating factor in
employer engagement, and there is a big shift in health towards independent providers. Substantial parts
of the curriculum are delivered in a clinical setting, by staff in employment of the NHS or SME (dental and
veterinary practice), therefore employers deliver the curriculum, and are almost always represented on
curriculum planning committees. We have almost no occasion when employers might, for example,
sponsor a student who is subsequently ‘bound’ to the institution or practice, but the NHS may support a
16
http://www.sgul.ac.uk/home/acma/ (September 2007).
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