8.11 How to set up a Live Exam Dashboard for an OSCE exam

The live exam dashboard is a monitoring page for an OSCE exam that allows users to monitor the submission of marks live from examiners during an OSCE.

Customers can create and tailor their own view of marks either by summarising or averaging multiple marks or by individual discrete marks. Only criteria that are discrete and mandatory are available to add to the live exam dashboard.

To set up a live exam dashboard:

Select the Manage live dashboard in the settings menu

Open

On the manage live dashboard page begin creating your dashboard using either the Summary score or the discreet score button:

Open

To add a summary score, select the criteria you wish to combine the scores of and then choose whether you wish to sum the value of all selected criteria answers or whether you want to average them:

When you return to the manage live dashboard page, you will see the criteria selected, the fact that it is a summary score, the display type chosen and the display value:

To add a discrete value, click the discrete score button and choose which of the criteria available you wish to display. A discrete value can be displayed on the dashboard either as the value of the criteria answer or as an abbreviation (This is to avoid confusion with multiple numbers on the dashboard for each candidate).

When you return to the manage live dashboard, the discrete value is now shown on the page. You can choose a maximum of 3 scores to be displayed on the live dashboard.

The abbreviations for discrete scores can be set up when you create the global schema answers:

Note: Adding an abbreviation to a global schema is a change to the schema. Any item using that global schema will therefore need to be synchronised for the abbreviation to be reflected on the Live exam dashboard.

To clearly indicate which criteria are in use for the live exam dashboard, each criteria included is shown with a padlock symbol on the manage global observation criteria page:

These criteria are locked and cannot be edited until they have been removed from the live exam dashboard. To do this click the Edit live dashboard and delete the criteria you wish to edit. This is to ensure that dashboard cannot be accidentally altered with incorrect criteria settings.

You can change the set up of your dashboard up until you publish the exam. Once published the set up is localised and no longer connected directly to the global version of the live exam dashboard. Any changes made will not be reflected on the published exam.

To access the live exam dashboard, click the View menu for the session you wish to look at and select the View live exam dashboard option:

On the dashboard, you will see all candidates and their starting station in rows and each column showing the scores submitted for each candidate in that station.

The dashboard will show the scores as they are submitted, there is no need to refresh the screen.

If you are unfamiliar with the set up of the live exam dashboard, you can click the Summary score key button and an explanation of the dashboard configuration will pop-up.

Help requests from the iPad

If your exam is run on iPad, the help requests from examiners will be shown on the live exam dashboard. The station number will turn orange indicating that help has been requested and if your set-up includes request types, these will be shown if you click the help request button at the top of the screen or hover over the station number.

To hear a sound when a help request comes in, tick the box “Play a sound on a new help request”.

Note: if candidates have access to a candidate iPad, their help requests are currently not supported in the live exam dashboard.

The help requests will disappear as the marshal clears them using the marshal iPad, note that when a help request is acknowledged, it remains visible on the dashboard, only once cleared is it removed. The help request will also disappear if the examiner cancels their request for help.

When the exam is finished, the dashboard will remain a reflection of what happened during the exam, i.e. the marks received from the examiners. Any changes made post exam will not be reflected on the dashboard.

Note: If an old exam dashboard is consulted, please use the summary score key as a reference, not the current set up of the live dashboard.