Factors associated with the successful introduction of on-line diagnostic, formative and summative assessment in the Medical Sciences Division University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a large, traditional, research-led, collegiate institution. The Medical Sciences Division (University of Oxford) includes undergraduate degrees (Medical, Physiological Sciences, Experimental Psychology, Biochemistry), masters and doctoral students. Clinical students are based at hospitals and health centres throughout the region. The Medical Sciences Teaching Centre (MSTC) was created to provide a central teaching “hotel” for three large research departments. It opened in 2002, contains a dedicated IT room with 48 workstations and one of the laboratories, normally used for laboratory classes, can be used as an IT room with a further 46 workstations for examinations. Three factors led to the identification of the need for a teaching centre: a 30% increase in the number of medical students per year. The need for additional space for research, which was gained by consolidating teaching in a single space, released underused teaching rooms within departments across the Science Area. The syllabus was revised for pre-clinical anatomy, reducing the amount of teaching in year two and introducing a three week intensive course “Principles of Clinical Anatomy” (PCA). This provides a bridge between year 1 - 3, taught in the Science Area, and years 4 – 6 taught in the geographically separate John Radcliffe Hospital.