University of Coimbra debuts digital in-person exams

During the last academic year, the University of Coimbra (UC) conducted over 100 b-learning remote exams, involving nearly 10,000 students through the UC Exams platform. Now, the big news is the shift to digital in-person exams.

On January 4th, 160 students from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra (FMUC) took their Radiology exam on-campus using the digital platform.

'UC Exams' is designed to be intuitive and user friendly so that students can take the exams even if they've never used the platform before.

Valentim Branquinho, head of UC Framework — the company that provides tailored digital solutions for the UC, — said that "After testing in a real environment, the students started typing their answers as soon as the exam started, proving the platform's effectiveness".

There were only two authentication issues during the exam, which were swiftly resolved by the UC Framework team. The students present were able to interact with the platform quickly and easily.

FMUC professor Filipe Caseiro Alves, who pioneered the use of this platform in a real-life context and is in charge of the Radiology exam, highlights the advantages of the tool, which is "used in-person with high security" and "allows graphics and images to be inserted with the highest resolution".

Students also acknowledge the advantages of taking exams in this format. "It is easy and quick to grasp,” says medical student Marta Delgado dos Santos.

Valentim Branquinho explains that the new UC Exams platform "aims to provide students and teachers with simple, clear and engaging management and participation interfaces".

For in-class exams, UC Exams uses UC DigitalPad interfaces. Valentim Branquinho says: "All the features have been designed to minimise distraction, make it easier to read instructions and answer options, and give students a clear and quick overview of their progress during the exam.

Luís Neves, UC Vice-Rector for human resources, finance and social affairs, explains that "our aim is to make exams more efficient, in terms of speeding up their marking, and also, of course, to dematerialise them in order to avoid the amount of paper we used to waste every year".

Considering the pilot project carried out in the Faculty of Medicine to have been "successfully completed", Luís Neves said that it is now time to "make this technology available to other faculties", foreseeing "a gradual adaptation of this new way of taking exams throughout the University".

In addition to FMUC, the Faculty of Law (FDUC) and the Faculty of Economics (FEUC) are also monitoring the platform's development. UC Framework anticipates that the first pilot exams at the Law Faculty are expected to take place by March. According to João Pedro Rodrigues, assistant professor at the FDUC, the main advantage is "the automatic marking, especially for multiple-choice questions, and the simplification in the case of written answers, as there's no need to decipher often illegible handwriting".

As for the students, João Pedro Rodrigues thinks that "it's something they're very familiar with", adding that "it's not unusual to find people who write even faster on the computer than they do by hand". The student adds that the platform significantly reduces the time "waiting" for their grades.

As it takes its first steps in face-to-face use, the aim is to make the UC Exams platform known to a wider range of teachers and faculties. In fact, UC Framework explains that "the connection of FMUC, FDUC and FEUC to the new platform was initiated at this stage through informal channels, in the context of other topics and presentations". Branquinho takes the opportunity to "invite all teaching staff to try out the new version of the exam platform, which is already available on UC Teacher (beta version).