Case Study: University of South Alabama achieves secure, high-resolution, instant-feedback online medical assessments with Questionmark

University of South Alabama - Customer Case Study

The University of South Alabama's College of Medicine, which educates two cohorts of roughly 75 students annually in basic medical sciences, needed to move from paper exams to online assessments to better prepare students for the Board of Medical Examiners’ online certification and to support high‑resolution images and secure, paced testing. To address this, the college adopted Questionmark in 2006, using tools such as Authoring Manager and Questionmark Secure.

Questionmark enabled the college to deliver all assessments for most basic science courses online—10 assessments for first‑year and 13 for second‑year students in fall 2008, with tests ranging from 50–150 questions—while providing browser‑based authoring, portable laptop labs with Questionmark Secure for exam integrity, and robust reports (Item Analysis, Question Statistics, Assessment Overview, Report for Excel, and individual coaching reports). The implementation allowed image-rich questions, immediate feedback, and actionable analytics that improved student learning, aided faculty in revising weak items, and better prepared students for board exams.

University of South Alabama

Joyce Guest

Instructional Design Specialist in the Educational Technologies and Services Department