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 and Graduate Schools at the UConn Health Center in several significant ways:

• Collecting student evaluations of course data through online surveys 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 this 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 and 4th year (ACE and AIE) clinical rotations through online surveys is also a function of the Office of Educational Assessment. This is accomplished thru the use of the off-site server-based system, MyEvaluations.com.  SCP evaluations of students by their community-based preceptors are also collected thru this online system. In addition, CMPS 1 and 2  now collect facilitators' evaluations of their students using this system. This has expanded to include ACE Radiology and major portions of the PCM 1 and 2 evaluations.  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 to the specific courses' leadership. This online system has proved invaluable in providing comprehensive and easily available information to assist in formulating the medical students' Dean's letters.

• Starting in 08-09, the MyEvaluations system allowed students to anonymously evaluate their Attendings or Residents from their rotation experience along with evaluating in some instances, their course rotation experiences.

• A Teaching Evaluation system designed by Josh Simon in FITS was implemented in 09-10 to collect student evaluations of Basic Medical Science Course lectures. This system provides to the BMS course leadership and their lecturers valuable feedback on the effectiveness and value of these lectures.  OEA provides support for this system.  This system will expand to include student evaluations of other areas of the BMS courses.

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 Vovici and Questionmark interfacing with the UConn Health Center's Blackboard system, the Office of Educational Assessment is able to successfully collect large amounts of data from the Medical and Graduate schools. This system allows students to anonymously evaluate their course or rotation experience and provide feedback to the course leadership. The survey software allows for creation of reports summarizing the data in various formats.

The office began the above online survey process in September 2001. A significant number of reports were distributed in 2011-2012 to the leadership in the Medical and the Graduate Schools. The process continues to expand and evolve throughout the schools.