Members of the Dirisana+ consortium want to address various formative and summative assessments as a means to improve the quality of education in constrained environments in sub-Saharan Africa. As part of this, large test question data banks will be created, expanded and shared within and between institutions of the consortium, student perceptions on electronic assessment for self-regulated learning will be gauged, the feasibility of tele-education in rural settings reviewed, and current learning tool functionalities assessed.

MCQ and SAQ Question Banks

The assessment committee consisting of members from the consortium are currently building question banks for osteology, histology, embryology, anatomy and pharmacology that will be shared between institutions and hopefully in the future given access to various health care science institutes in Southern Africa to use for assessments for health care students. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for the creation of questions have been developed to ensure all questions are made consistency across all platforms. The SOPs have been quality assured by professionals in the field and various workshops have been given to members to ensure they learn the quality assurance process when they assess questions. Once questions have been assess and edited, questions are then uploaded on to the ROGO system under various topics. This system is used for the storage and will allow for the sharing and distribution of all the question banks. 

Researchers involved

Prof Ericka L'Abbé University of Pretoria Academic Staff Development of anatomy question banks	Pearl Bothma University of Pretoria Quality Assurance Manager QA and uploading of anatomy question banks	Dr Lané Prigge University of Pretoria Academic staff Development of anatomy question banks	Soné van der Walt Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University Academic staff Development of anatomy question banks and assessing the perspectives of staff and students on the effectiveness of online assessments
Patria Hartmann Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University Academic staff Development of anatomy question banks and assessing the quality of multiple-choice based anatomy tests