Background
Summative assessments are an integral component of an academic program. In view of the increasing number of universities in the developing world supporting medical, paramedical, and allied courses, an efficient and secure document management system for summative assessment becomes imperative. However, high cost, complex design, and low availability limit the universal use of a commercial examination management system (EMS). In most of these universities, examination management is done manually making storage, retrieval, and secure handling cumbersome. Hence, an efficient document management system at an affordable cost is likely to revolutionize the summative assessment process.
What was Tried?
EndNote is a popular referencing software available commercially at an affordable price and is familiar to most academicians worldwide.[1] It archives research citations and attaches files in EndNote libraries (ENL). We propose the potential use of this software as a document management system for summative assessment in resource-limited settings.
We customized the display fields in the library window from the preference menu by replacing author, year, title, journal, reference type, Uniform Resource Locator (URL), and “Last Updated” with name of the examiner, course & subject, date of examination, venue, proctor, contact details, and number of candidates, respectively. Instead of citations, we created several entries of different summative assessments by opening the “References” menu, selecting “New Reference,” and filling up data into each of these fields. Encrypted question paper, proctoring details, and other relevant files were attached by selecting “Attach File” under “File Attachment” from the right-click menu of the selected entry (citation). The entire library of entries was broken down into groups and group sets for easier access [Figure 1].
Figure 1.
Customization of display fields in EndNote
What Lessons Learned?
The essential features of an examination management system are — Compactness, archiving, retrieval, backup facility, and security.[2] The inbuilt features of EndNote allows for integration with other essential software and printers, cross-platform use in Windows and Macintosh operating systems, portability of data as compressed libraries, identification of duplicate entries, searchability of data in the library, and attached PDF files. Owing to its flexible and compact design, the display fields, group sets, and groups in the library window can be customized to suit the summative assessment, irrespective of subject or speciality. While each examination detail can be stored as a citation, multiple files in any format can be attached to it. Several related examinations can be integrated into groups or group sets, allowing easy archiving and retrieval. EndNote additionally allows for the recovery of data from damaged ENLs. Confidential documents (doc, pdf, xls, and zip) can be protected by encryption with unique passwords. Security can be enhanced using a dedicated computer unit, limiting the number of users and restricting access to a particular drive or folder containing confidential ENLs. There is also provision for data backup. The whole library or selected entries with attached files can be saved as compressed library (.enlx format) for safe online or offline backup (compact discs, flash drives, etc.). In case of upgradation of the EndNote software, the saved data with file attachments can be reloaded from the compressed library, obviating the need to reenter the same data manually. However, EndNote has its limitations. It lacks some facilities of a typical EMS such as multilayer authentication, online uploading of question paper, hall ticket or central evaluation data, and certificate authentication.[2,3] Despite these limitations, our model, when employed judiciously, will go a long way in solving the problems of document management faced in the traditional paper based systems.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
References
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- 3.Mindlogicx - Examination Management solution. Mindlogicx Infratec Ltd. [Last accessed on 2015 Feb 05]. Available from: http://www.mindlogicx.com/intelliEXAMS.html .