The University of Queensland Launches the Myprogress ePAD for Medical Students

Highly respected and internationally recognised, The University of Queensland’s medical school is amongst Australia’s top 5 universities for medicine, according to the QS Top Universities Rankings 2022.  

The university’s Doctor of Medicine curriculum is currently undertaking a transformation to better prepare graduates for modern clinical practice. As part of the transformation, the university sought proposals for the supply of an electronic Workplace Based Assessment (WBA) tool to support a variety of assessment processes. The solution needed to facilitate improved pedagogical practices, increase administration efficiencies, and capture opportunistic assessment in the workplace to facilitate real-time monitoring and tracking student progress against the required levels of clinical competencies to ensure safe practice. 

This transformation reflects a global trend in shifting away from incumbent high-stake examinations in favour of a more skills based, clinical competence.  

The key aims of switching to an online WBA tool was to: 

• Improve learning and assessment user experience for students and assessors 
• Improve assessment processes, controls, and reporting   
• Reduce administrative overhead 

In response, MyKnowledgeMap was proud to offer the Myprogress ePAD product to support and facilitate this. The MyProgress ePAD includes a WBA platform with a dedicated offline mobile app for carrying out assessments in workplace settings anytime, anywhere. It is based on Microsoft Azure services hosted in Australia, and the tool can be tailored to an institution’s needs.  

Some of the features The University of Queensland wanted included: 

• Mobile assessments completed online and offline (and uploaded when available) 
• Integration with InPlace student placement software. 
• Integration with Blackboard, including grade centre to seamlessly transfer marks or grades. 
• Ensuring the process for assessors is as efficient and simple as possible; the assessor needs to make just one click from the notification they receive to get to the assessment. 
• Configure emails to come from The University of Queensland’s domain. 
• Customisable reporting to monitor progress and flagging of individual students and groups of students. 
• When typing in the assessor's email, the system automatically finds the email from a database list, so it is possible to choose from the list rather than having to type the full email in, reducing mistakes.  
• When typing in the assessor's email, restrict this to a list of assessors that are known to the system and known to be the assessors responsible for this type of assessment task, again reducing mistakes. 
• Fully customisable user interface.

UQ also have the option to roll out MyKnowledgeMap’s MyShowcase product to further extend the e-portfolio functionality including advanced Progress Views, student showcasing capability and other functions.  

MyProgress ePAD is now used in approximately 30% of all UK Medical Schools and 40% of UK Nursing Schools, and an increasing number in Australia, Singapore, USA and Europe. It is also the supplier to the UK General Medical Council for their OSCE and PLAB1 examinations systems.   

The MyProgress solution has won various international awards and in 2020 was shortlisted by the Times Higher Education Supplement for “Digital Innovation of the Year”.  

If you are interested in learning more about how MyProgress ePAD can support and improve practice-based assessment and feedback, please get in touch with the team at info@myprogressapp.com.