Background
In the past, all marking for the General Dental Council’s Overseas Registration Examinations (ORE) Part 2 exam was carried out manually – with examiners having to carry around a folder full of paper which they had to flick through to get to the paperwork for the right candidate. At which point they then had to assess and mark the candidate’s performance against a specific set of criteria at specific points of the examination process. Under time pressure, individual examiners could end up having to revisit the same marking process on multiple occasions in order to complete the assessment of candidates in a standardised manner.
This made marking the exams onerous and time consuming since there was no standardised marking sequence against the complex and specific criteria required for the assessment. Examiners had to spend a lot of time manually re-checking the details they wrote on the mark sheets during the assessment process to ensure that they would get everything right. This was time consuming and not user friendly
Current Situation – The view from an examiner.
More efficient examinations
The Board for the ORE Examinations worked with Maxinity to develop a bespoke portable, electronic system for marking the assessments.
The examination is now set up so that examiners can follow logically through the sequence of events in the assessments in a clear, simple electronic format. The system leads the examiner directly through the sequence of marking criteria as well as highlighting any unanswered marking criteria throughout the candidate’s assessment. This process frees up precious time and relieves the pressure on the examiners as they no longer have to meticulously check through all their marking manually to spot any missing sections.
This in turn enables the examiners to concentrate more throughout the examination as the software leads them through the assessment in a logical format, enabling them to focus on the right questions at the right time and thus making the assessments more efficient and robust.
The examiners have found it easy to adapt to this bespoke system, as it is clear and easy for them to tap in the right information in the right place. In the event that there are any issues, Maxinity also provides on-site support to offer any technical help and guidance as required.
Standardised, fairer results
The Maxinity software has enabled the assessment of the students to be standardised, reproducible, robust and fair. All the examiners are guided to use the same marking criteria logically progressing throughout the assessment process.
With the assessment process working in this well supported and standardised environment, candidates can be confident of a fair and robust assessment, equitable and verifiable by all.
Furthermore, the security built within the system via the unique login and password for each examiner means examiner’s results are both easy to identify and secure.
Quicker identification of any issues
As data is logged electronically and simultaneously when specific assessments are made, it can easily be exported from the system to be analysed in Excel or other packages. As a result, examiners are able to extract data effectively and efficiently, and can rely on a bespoke, equitable, robust and user-friendly assessment process, simplifying an otherwise very complex assessment.
In the words of our client:
"The work that has gone on between the chief examiner and Maxinity to develop a system that works for the examinations we run has come up trumps as far as I am concerned. It has enabled examiners to work through the examination process in a structured manner. From a practical assessment point of view as an experienced examiner, Maxexam has made marking candidates’ performances logical, efficient and clear. This bespoke package is of great help standardising the exam facilitating robust but fair results."
