Abstract
This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) has developed a flexible 'tele-assessment' approach to the delivery of its assessment modalities. Candidates can sit their examination remotely, close to their place of practice, which reduces the need for rural doctors - both candidates and examiners - to leave their communities for the purpose of assessment. A major component of the assessment process is the Structured Assessment using Multiple Patient Scenarios (StAMPS) examination, which blends the formats of an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and a traditional viva vocè examination. It is a high-stakes assessment, that was designed to be academically rigorous, flexible, valid, reliable, and fair. Since 2008 ACRRM has provided a videoconferencing option to candidates for their StAMPS examination allowing them to remain in or near their home location, while the examiners meet a central location. Travel restrictions due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic meant for the first time both candidates AND examiners participated in StAMPS via videoconference. ACRRM conducted an online StAMPS assessment using videoconferencing technology for 65 candidates in mid-May 2020, with all candidates, examiners and support staff remaining in or near their home communities. These Twelve Tips outline some of the experience gained in providing tele-assessment over the past twelve years.
Highlights
The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) is the world’s first and only specialist medical college for rural medicine (Smith et al, 2007)
Structured Assessment using Multiple Patient Scenarios (StAMPS) is a unique examination which blends the formats of an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and a traditional viva vocè examination
This paper describes Twelve Tips for delivering high-stakes OSCE-style examinations via video tele-assessment, using the recent example of the Structured Assessments using Multiple Patient Scenarios (StAMPS) examination
Summary
The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) is the world’s first and only specialist medical college for rural medicine (Smith et al, 2007). In the recent StAMPS examination candidates stayed in the same room, with examiners entering and leaving at appropriate times managed by the room monitor. The platform permitted sufficient administrator rights to other levels of users so that on the day of the examination support staff could rebuild or correct challenges without the need for the IT services team, and without affecting other users on the system This meant that if a particular virtual room had an issue the environment could generally be rebuilt by the local team rapidly, and without having to reassign access to a different user. Prior to StAMPS ACRRM ran a series of separate training sessions for both the examiners and candidates, enabling questions to be resolved and staff to identify candidates who may need extra support on the day. With increasing experience and confidence there are many more refinements that can be introduced
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