Posted on November 3, 2024
Blog
Conferences
Event Management
Critical considerations for professional body examination management
Exam delivery is essential for medical colleges as part of the Australian and New Zealand medical professionals' qualification process. These exams are often complex and high stakes, with many technical and security requirements, frequently across multiple locations.
Complex requirements
Medical exam clients encompass various medical colleges, such as the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) and the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA). These clients often require the following:
- Secure venues with a range of spaces for exams, candidate waiting and quarantine rooms, examiner facilities and more.
- The capacity to securely manage both paper-based and computer exams.
- Skilled invigilation teams.
- High-speed internet and connectivity for bandwidth-intensive image manipulation.
- The ability to host exams in multiple locations across ANZ and APAC.
- Specific and innovative approaches to combine face-to-face and virtual elements of exams, such as the objective structured clinical exam
Proudly supporting medical colleges over the years
Clients like the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) have been coming back to Cliftons for over 13 years. Stephanie Clota, CEO of RACS, says, "Education, training and examinations are at the heart of the work the College performs in advancing surgery and training the future generations of surgeons. Cliftons is an important partner that enables our faculty and staff to focus their attention on the crucial training and examination work that the College undertakes."
Cliftons is proud to play an important role in supporting medical colleges in their vital work, with a shared commitment to excellence. Based on our insights and experience, here are some insights on how we help our clients with their examination requirements.
Integrity and security are critical for medical exams
First and foremost, ensuring security for medical exams is our top priority. We do this through:
- Securely storing paper-based exams, which are usually delivered several days in advance.
- Having our invigilation team cross-check each candidate has the correct information and exam papers.
- Using an imaging system to install the exam system for computer-based exams, with comprehensive testing by our IT team, before being distributed via a secure FTP and loaded on machines in each venue.
- Providing a trained invigilation team, with a typical ratio of 1:15, plus a chief invigilator to ensure academic integrity.
A comprehensive planning approach to ensure success
When selecting a venue and event delivery partner, confirming that they have the necessary expertise in medical exam delivery is crucial. Cliftons deep understanding of medical exam delivery allows us to effectively navigate the requirements and ensure the best possible outcomes for the College. We thoroughly assess the risk profile, technological needs, and candidate experience for each College and exam.
For example, radiology and pathology exams can involve many large file-size images that candidates need to be able to manipulate. In this scenario, it is essential that the venue is equipped with fast and secure high-speed internet connections that can quickly meet the large bandwidth requirements of these images.
When exams are held in multiple locations, we work with the client college to determine exam start times across time zones and any candidate quarantine requirements. When candidates must be held in quarantine (often for multiple hours), the venue must provide peaceful briefing and holding areas for pre-exam and engaging, comfortable post-exam spaces.
Creating an Efficient Process for Seamless Exam Delivery
Cliftons has been delivering exams for over 25 years, with in-depth experience in our in-house team. We've used our expertise to develop a structured process to ensure a streamlined exam delivery.
- A pre-exam training and briefing call three weeks out for the venue managers, technicians and invigilators to understand the intricacies of that particular exam
- Our technical teams create and test the image for any computer-based exam requirements.
- The team arrives on-site, often as early as 4 am.
- The exam manager checks in with all venues, ensuring all team members have arrived.
- During the day, we communicate with our team and clients through a mix of Webex, Microsoft Teams, and WhatsApp. Unless it is an emergency, all communication is text-based to ensure a comprehensive record and to streamline time-stamping for incident reporting, if required.
- Ongoing updates include the status of exams, including start and finish times and missing or late candidates.
- All paperwork is collected, counted, boxed and placed into secure storage for the client.
- Candidates are either released into quarantine or released from the venue, as required.
- Computer-based exams see all files uploaded; once the upload is confirmed, computers are freshly imaged to remove any trace of the exam.
- Any necessary incident reports are completed, and documentation is provided to the client.
Pre-exam
On the day
At exam completion
Post-exam day
Why Cliftons is the preferred exam venue choice for professional bodies across ANZ
Cliftons has a highly experienced team that comes together to deliver exams, with long-term partnerships with many medical colleges. This includes:
- Hosting over 35,000 exam candidates a year.
- Cohorts ranging in size from as little as one person to 2600.
- A dedicated exam delivery team of 5, plus an extensive team in each venue comprising of a Chief Invigilator, Exam Technician and up to 90 invigilators to support the delivery team.
- Over 200 trained invigilators.
- An in-house IT team, including a Cisco Certified network engineer.
- Delivering exams at our own network of venues in Australian and New Zealand capital cities, as well as partner venues across ANZ and globally.
- Capacity for in-venue, virtual and hybrid exam delivery.
More than medical exams
Of course, medicine isn't the only field with complex exam requirements. Our team works with professional bodies and education providers across numerous industries to deliver secure spaces for exam delivery that give organisers peace of mind and candidates the best possible exam experience.
Talk to our team about your requirements, whether that's a one-day exam in Sydney, a multi-city program of events, or safe and secure virtual exams with a comprehensive risk management approach.
About Cliftons
Event Solutions
If you’re ready to start bringing your event plans to life, talk to our
team to discuss your goals.
Start with a no-obligation chat about what you want to achieve, and our team can guide you through the services we offer.
In the spirit of reconciliation Cliftons Event Solutions acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
What are you looking for?
