Visiting a WebPA adopter

Earlier this week, we went down to the University of East Anglia (UEA) to the Medical department to meet with two staff members heavily involved in the assessment of students. They had found the WebPA project and system, and seen how they can apply it to their situation.

The implementation of WebPA they will use will not at first exploit the full system. They are looking at using the system to gather the data needed from the students against the form criteria. This is where the break comes, UEA will not be using the algorithm, but exploiting the form reports (hopefully we will be providing a tailored report). The system will address the need to asses students abilities as part of the General Medical Councils guidelines on fitness to Practice.

This forms an interesting break from both how the system was designed to use into an interesting area for the project to explore. It is only the flexibility that the system provides that allows this to happen. If the project had gone down the route of producing a more stringent process focused system UEA may never have been able to use the tool.

All in all watch this space and see how the use of WebPA develops for a new type of assessment.