Office of Educational Assessment (OEA)

The Office of Educational Assessment (OEA) is located in the University of Connecticut Medical School. This office serves the Medical, Dental, and Graduate Schools at the UConn Health Center in four significant ways:

• Collecting student evaluations of course data through online surveys in all three schools is a primary function. Summary reports created from this data are provided to the course directors. The office also provides an analysis of the results to the course directors including a comparative analysis to previous years' results. This information assists the course leadership in making decisions about the curriculum.
• The survey data also supply the office with students' opinions on how well they are evaluated by a course. The course directors use the data to enhance the courses' current evaluation methods.
• The Office of Educational Assessment helps evaluate courses in the Medical School. This is promoted through the Course and Curriculum Evaluation Committee's (CCEC) intensive evaluation of each medical school course every three years.
• Collecting faculty evaluations of medical students in their 3rd year clinical rotations through online surveys is a relatively new function of the Office of Educational Assessment. In April 2004, this office began administering a new online, off-site server-based system called MyEvaluations.com. For the 2003-2004 academic year, the Student Continuity Practice evaluations of students by their community-based preceptors were executed using this new online system. In 2004-2005, faculty began using this system to evaluate third year medical students in their clinical rotations. With this system, a variety of reports can be generated online so as to view completed student evaluation reports as well as providing other useful data for the MAX and Inpatient leadership. This online system has proved invaluable in providing comprehensive and easily available information to assist in formulating the medical students' Dean's letters.

Our Charge

The charge of the Office of Educational Assessment is to be a service center to collect data involving courses, faculty, and the curriculum as a whole. The course directors are provided with data and analysis to make necessary decisions about the curriculum. In April 2004, the office began serving as a clearinghouse function for evaluations of students on their clinical rotations.

The Online Surveys

Through the use of Perseus Professional Survey Software interfacing with the UConn Health Center's Blackboard system, the Office of Educational Assessment is able to successfully collect large amounts of data from all three schools. The survey software allows for the creation of reports summarizing the data in various formats.

The office began the above online survey process in September 2001. Over 450 reports were distributed in 2007-2008 to the leadership in the Medical, Dental, and Graduate Schools. The process continues to expand and evolve throughout all three schools.