Touchstone training courses

Just as the web and email have become virtually inescapable aspects of our daily lives, so too is online assessment gaining ground in all aspects of learning. Online assessment not only simplifies the assessment task but also the marking and reporting of assessments.

The Medical Education Unit (MEU) has been working hard over the last three years on an online assessment and survey platform called TouchStone. The system is capable of generating the following types of examinations and surveys:

Formative Assessments (self-tests)
Progress Tests
Summative Assessments
Surveys (questionnaires)

In any type of paper you can mix and match the following question types:

Dichotomous (True/False and Yes/No)
Multiple Choice (MCQ)
Multiple Response
Extended Matching
Ranking
Fill-in-the-Blank
Text Boxes
Likert Scales
Image Hotspots
Macromedia Flash interface

A range of multimedia sources can also be used with each question type including: graphics, audio files, animations and video.

The dates of the courses will be:

Wednesday 27th July 2pm - 4pm
Tuesday 2nd August 10am - 12 noon
Thursday 18th August 9am - 11am

Nineteen places are available for each of the dates and will be held in Room A36 at the back of the Greenfield Medical Library (QMC). There is no charge but I would appreciate it if you could email me (simon.wilkinson@nottingham.ac.uk) if you wish to attend. A lot of new functionality has been included in TouchStone over the last 12 months so even if you attended one of the sessions last summer, you are more than welcome to come to one of the new ones. Sessions will be adapted to the needs of the attendees whether it is a basic introduction to the types of questions available or a review of the reporting capabilities and item analysis.

Dr Simon Wilkinson
(Senior Systems Development Officer)