Maastricht University Library Wall

After some tests in the medical curriculum students can submit their comments to questions of the test electronically.

Persons involved
Students following  the medical curriculum who have taken those tests, reviewers of the test questions.

Purpose of the practice
the purpose of this practice is to provide an easy way for students to submit their comments and an easy way to forward comments to reviewers.

Context
For a short period after the tests involved, students can submit any comments they might have on specific questions of the test. Until a few years ago comments on each question was submitted on paper in a postbox of the exam office and subsequently forwarded to the reviewer responsible for that question. Students are requested to support their comment with evidence, like a reference to a publication or an extract of a book. In order to facilitate the process of submitting the comments with attachments and forwarding them to the relevant reviewers the possibility to submit comments electronically was developed.

Tools
The electronic learning environment of Maastricht University, EleUM (consisting of the Blackboard learning system and the Blackboard Content System) is being used to submit the comments. In the Content System a structure of folders has been created with a folder for each individual test and subfolders for groups of ten questions. In the Content System students are given permissions to place items in these folders and reviewers can download the comments on their questions directly or comments can be forwarded to them. In a Student organization in EleUM a link has been made to these folders so students don’t have to navigate to the Content System in order to submit a comment.

Results
The system works well.

Investment
The Content System of Blackboard was already available so only a limited investment in time had to be made in order to instruct students and employees of the exam office how to work with the Content System.

Contact information
Name: Antoinette Vesseur
University Library
e-mail address: a.vesseur@maastrichtuniversity.nl
telephone number: 043 3885118