1. Department of Medical Education College of Medicine King Saud bin Abdul Aziz University for Health Sciences

2.  The Assessment Unit is committed to working within the regulations and provisions of both of the following:  Policies and Procedures of the College of Medicine Assessment Unit.  IDEAL Consortium Program.

3.  To be responsible for producing and editing MCQs, OSPE and OSCE stations for student examinations and for preserving them in the College of Medicine Bank (IDEAL).  To ensure that student assessment is in accordance with the block (course) content and that examinations follow block blueprints.  To analyze the psychometric properties of the examinations and to provide feedback on the examination results.  To maintain a liaison with the IDEAL International Consortium for sharing medical student assessment banks.  To implement Assessment Unit Policies and Procedures.  To ensure complete confidentiality of the Assessment Unit.

4.  Forming Assessment Unit Committee.  Setting up blueprints for course exams.  Providing assessment and item-writing workshops.  Soliciting, preparing, and editing items.  Scheduling meetings for review and approval of items to ensure that the blueprint is adhered to and the items meet the IDEAL criteria.  Typing and formatting examinations for the block mid block and final examinations.

5.  Collating, delivering, and retrieving written examinations.  Marking exams using optical scanners and delivering results to Academic Affairs.  Reviewing psychometric properties of the test/items.  Securing and maintaining proper storage of examinations.

6.  A group of medical schools organized to share their undergraduate student assessment items ( n = 25).  We are the first Saudi medical school to be accepted into the Consortium.  Services of the Consortium.  Provide access to a huge student data bank (20,000+ items).  Offer faculty development programs.  Workshops  Conferences  On-site training  Annual meetings  Contribute to quality assurance of our assessment system. ( I nternational D atabase for E nhanced A ssessment and L earning)

7.  Maintain the local bank on IDEAL system.  Retrieve items from IDEAL shared bank for our examinations.  Forward annual contribution of items to the IDEAL Consortium. (150 items minimum)  Conduct IDEAL Consortium workshops for Assessment Unit staff and faculty.

8. COLLEGE CONTRIBUTION IN IDEAL  Meetings attended.  Oman  Indonesia  Canada  Participated as facilitator in IDEAL workshops.  Sudan – Khartoom and Jazeera

9. IDEAL is a Windows-based software application for conveniently: 1. entering, storing, searching, retrieving, editing, printing or administering assessment items, as well as for 2. updating, managing and sharing assessment banks in medical education.

10. IDEAL supports the following item types:  X-Type (True/False, Multiple True/False),  A-Type (MCQs),  K-Type,  R-Type (Extended matching),  Multiple Response (Pick n of N for A-Type and R-Type),  Short Answer,  Modified Essays,  OSCE and OSPE.

11.  The IDEAL system includes two support item analysis programs for purposes of generating relevant item performance characteristics (based on students' responses to the items in an examination). The item analysis program generates an IDEAL readable file for purposes of uploading and storing with each banked item, its discrimination index, point biserial, difficulty level, and student response patterns by high, middle and low performance groups.

12.  Items are classified by and can be searched for:  using identification numbers or a modified version of USMLE's item classification scheme.  by MeSH terms (Medical Subject Headings).  or using any part of an item's text, i.e. words, phrases, or parts of words (i.e. wild cards).  search can be structured using a combination of classification criteria derived from a test blue print.

13.  Formulate more improvement in system for presentation of Block Mid year, Final, OSCE and OSPE examinations.  Development of local bank on IDEAL system.  Better utilization of IDEAL Consortium item bank.