This page contains list of releases and changes for the Practique Server software.

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5.1.9 -

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New Features

Extended Matching Questions

A new written question type has been added to Practique, in the form of EMQs. Extended Matching Questions present candidates with a list of possible options around a single theme/subject area. A series of SBA style sub-questions are then asked relating to this theme, where the all of the answers come from one single list of options. 

Example showing how to create EMQs:

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EMQs are currently supported for paper exams only. iPad functionality will be added in a future release.

Distribution of Candidate feedback report via e-mail

It is now possible to distribute candidate feedback directly from Practique. After generating the PDFs, an 'Email' button now appears. 

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Clicking this will allow you to define the message template that you would like to send to candidates. It is possible to include the first and last name of the candidate using the variables *|FNAME|* *|LNAME|*. Candidates can be selected from the 'Candidates' box, where multiple candidates can be selected using Ctrl/Command and Shift keys. The 'Redirect To' field is useful to test the report distribution. By inputting your email address, the emails will be sent to this address instead of to candidates. The reports are attached to the emails as PDFs.

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Improvements

PRAC-1323 - iPad device name is updated on Server

Practique previously collected and shown iPad device names on the View Logins page for each of the exam sessions. This device name has been registered by Practique when device first connected to the Server. When users renamed the device Practique would still use the old name at the time device 1st registered.

Practique now updates the name of the device automatically to provide accurate information on the View logins page.

PSD-461 Candidate allocation upload does not assign candidates correctly

Candidate allocation using CSV requires user to specify the Block & Session information in order for the CSV upload to correctly allocate Candidates.

Changes as been made to the CSV allocation handling to allow user to omit Block & Session information from the CSV file when exam has only one Block and Session. Changes has been documented in the inline help.

Fixes

PRAC-1311 Item blueprint page does not display full path to a linked Blueprint dimension category

When using Dependent Blueprint dimensions, Practique didn't show full "path" for the selected Blueprint dimension category when viewing Blueprinting page for an Item. Practique now includes full path for the category to provide full blueprinting information.

PRAC-1330 iPad synchronisation may fail when exam is pushed many times (15+)

Due to implementation detail exams which have been pushed many times (and having specific internal IDs) did fail to temporary synchronise to the iPads because Server confused iPad by issuing the same synchronisation payload for the data pushes instead of correctly identifying each push to the iPads.

This issue was very rare and did depend on internal exam number and number of times users pushed the exam.

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10th January 2017

Fixes

PRAC-1350 Fixed SBA mark amendments

Amending candidate responses to SBA question in Practique backend on a running or completed exam (View sessions -> View items -> View)did not properly handle "No answer" response. It was not correctly processed and mark was not changed.

PRAC-1351 Fixed mark edit form on "Individual marks for ..." page.

Changing responses on "Individual marks for..." page (View sessions -> View Candidates -> View marks -> Edit) did not update the Candidate's result for that item. The update was done only when results were previewed for reporting purposes or exam data published.

Minor issues

When a Candidate's responses were added in backend, for example entering responses from a paper marksheet, the Item overview did not display correct number of Submitted mark sheets.

5.1.8 - 5th December 2016

New Features

McManus Standard setting

The standard setting method created by Bruce McManus at the University of Southampton has been added to Practique. This requires candidates to satisfy two criteria in order to pass the OSCE - an aggregate score across the exam, and a minimum number of stations to pass. More information on the method can be found on the poster below.

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Setting the standard setting method to McManus:

Improvements

PRAC-1301 Item Approver can notify Allow to notify submitter of an Item if the item is rejected

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This card now includes Resource blueprint tagging information.

Fixes

PRAC-1306 When Adding Item to an Item Set user returns to first item selection page

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It is now possible to import Title for Written Item types (SBA, VSAQ, ...) using CSV file. Documentation for importing each of the types has been amended accordingly.

Fixes

PRAC-1266 Full text search does not work for search terms with more than one word

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5.1.6 - 14th November 2016

New Features

Reference Ranges

Reference Ranges have been added to Practique, to enable faster question authoring. Using reference ranges standardises technical information that is used across multiple questions. For example, Adult IgM (Immunoglobulin M) would have a reference range of 37-286 mg/dL*. By using reference ranges in Practique, there is a centralised way to manages this information. This can be found under Settings > Reference Ranges.

Here, you can see a list of all the Reference Ranges within Practique, and search for them. You can create new Reference Ranges by clicking 'Create new Reference value'.

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The Reference Range feature can also be used to insert any standardised text into questions.

Improvements

PRAC-1222 Added "show all exams" option for the Exams filters

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• Station Examiner ID
• Station Score
• Station Pass/Fail
• Station Borderline Marker 1..N (numerical value)

Fixes

PRAC-1243 Unable to assign a non-editable dimension (automatically imported dimension) to a Blueprint Map

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5.1.5 - 8th November 2016

Improvements

PRAC-1211, PRAC-1229 Allow import items with multiple Blueprint Dimension tagging

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Changes to the CSV format has been documented on the Item Import page.

Fixes

PRAC-1227 Not possible to combine filters using multiple Blueprint dimensions

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5.1.4 - 4th November 2016

Fixes

PRAC-1223 It is not possible to edit a Resource because form is validated for existing resource number

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5.1.3 - 3rd November 2016

New Features

Multiple borderline markers (disabled by default)

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PRAC-1204 Each user account now require unique e-mail address to uniquely pair user with e-mail address

Fixes

PRAC-1193, PSD-386 Unable to view published and ignored exams

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5.1.2 - 13th October 2016

Fixes

PRAC-1157 Unable to attach resource from resource bank to an Item

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5.1.1 - 11th October 2016

Improvements

Log in and SSO

Added the ability to customise the various text information when using SSO integration. It is now possible to customise text of the Login Button, text of the Link for users who do not have SSO login with the organisation as well as welcome text on the left side of the logins screen. This provides compete customisation of the login screen for the customer.

5.1.0 - 7th October 2016

New Features

Filtering and searching within Practique has been overhauled, with a new unified design for filtering the Item Bank, Item Sets, Resources, Exams, Candidates, Examiners and Users.

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1. Filters can be applied or removed easily, and allow for filtering based on Blueprint Dimensions, as well as dates and users.
2. It is possible to add multiple filters - these are added using AND logic. This means that an item (or resource/candidate etc) must meet all of the criteria set in the filters. It is also possible to select multiple categories within the same dimension - this will use OR logic, where an item must be either in one of the selected categories.
3. Similar to existing usage, it is possible to filter items based on their review state
4. It is also possible to filter based on the type of Item (or resource etc)
5. It is now easier to sort through the filtering results.
6. As well as filtering by Blueprint Dimensions, it is possible to filter by the date that an item has been created or updated, as well as the user that created the item.

Example usage:

Improvements

VSAQ Improvements

PRAC-1009 There have been significant improvements to the workflow of marking VSAQ responses

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Roles have been renamed to User Groups, as this more accurately reflects how they are used in Practique. We have simplified the user interface, so that it is now easier to see which User Groups a User is part of. We have also removed the 'Senior Administrator' role from all users exept Fry-IT administrators.Existing 'Senior Administrators' will be moved to Administrators. This will not affect any users abilities on the system.

Fixes

PRAC-1024 Examiner ID Validation Error

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5.0.0 - 19th September 2016

New Features

User Interface Update

The new User Interface will likely be the most prominent change in Practique 5.0. The primary driving force behind this is to provide a better and easier experience for people using Practique on a day-to-day basis. There will be some noticeable changes to the system in some parts in order to standardise the design. However the core workflows within Practique have not changed, unless documented below.

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The way that examiners and candidates can be blueprinted has not changed, however we have now added this method of tagging to resources. Previously, resources (assets) only supported simple tagging, with little control and flexibility. Now the same way of tagging has been added to resources, where a blueprint dimension can be defined as applying to items, candidates, examiners and resources.

Improvements

PRAC-957 Performance improvements for incoming mark submissions

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This error was caused by inconsistencies with opening spreadsheet files between Windows operating systems and macOS 

4.3.9 - 19th July 2016

Improvements

PSD-279, PSD-287, PSD-291 : Ability to set Cut score per station

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PDF generator has been updated to ensure that the section header is not separated from it's content.

Fixes

PRAC-963: WRITTEN - Fixed Unicode error on (V)SAQ mark edit screen

4.3.8 - 14th June 2016

Improvements

PSD-257: Removed Pass mark & Pass/Fail columns from analysis part of Candidate feedback report

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These two columns have now been removed.

Fixes

PSD-254: Unable to generate Examiner report for exam with has excluded stations

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4.3.7, 4.3.6 - 3rd June 2016

Improvements

PRAC-520 Improved scheduling of Candidates and Examiners

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• It is possible to allocate Examiners/Candidates to Session, Circuit, Room
• It is possible to upload complete schedule for Examiners/Candidates via CSV/XLS to allow external preparation of schedule
• It is possible to adjust uploaded schedule for Examiners/Candidates
• It is possible to manually prepare schedule for Examiners/Candidates
• It is still possible to let Practique generate schedule automatically

4.3.5 - 20th May 2016

Improvements

PRAC-971: Keep order of items when combining exams

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Examiner report now groups examiners per station they have examined during the exam. Also for each examiner report shows the Z-Score, Mean score and Standard deviation, this information is also presented in a graph for easy comparison.

4.3.4 - 10th May 2016

Fixes

PRAC-969, PSD-231: OSCE - Unable to change Station with special characters in it's title

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This has now been fixed and it is possible to change stations even if they contain special characters.

4.3.3 - 10th May 2016

Improvements

PRAC-967: OSCE - Role player scheduling improvements when scheduling Role players to multiple sessions

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• • Copy and Rotate circuit: Role players are copied to other sessions and rotate circuits as well
  • Copy and keep Circuit: Role players are copied to other sessions but stay on the same circuit
  • Don't copy: Role players won't be copied to other sessions

4.3.2 - 5th May 2016

Fixes

PRAC-968: OSCE - Global observation criteria does not allow to set Borderline marker

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It is now possible to create new observation criteria and mark it as Borderline marker.

4.3.1 - 4th May 2016

Fixes

PSD-217, PRAC-947: OSCE - Candidate/Examiner import from LDAP does not specify dimension type

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Standard setting screen has been updated to indicate how many Fails is due to CSP.

4.2.2 - 12th April 2016

Improvements

PRAC-903: Written - Improve sorting of (V)SAQ answers wile marking

SAQ and VSAQ answers are now sorted by given response with the most frequent answers first which allows quicker marking.

Fixes

PRAC-650, PRAC-845: OSCE - Export OSCE results not transferring text feedback

4.2.1 - 5th April 2016

Fixes

PRAC-624: ASCII error when downloading results from View standard screen

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4.2.0 - 31st March 2016 (requires Practique for iPad version >=4.1.0)

New Features

Combining exams

Combining exams feature provides means how multiple OSCE or Written exams (more specifically exam blocks) can be combined into single exam of the same type to allow desired results processing.

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Practique now separates Examiner/Candidate IDs from iPad passwords. New field Password is now available for Examiners/Candidates. You have also option to import Examiners/Candidates with new 'password' field which should be populated with desired iPad password 'as is' should you wish to have different passwords from Examiner/Candidate IDs. If you wish to have iPad passwords same as Examiner/Candidate ID you omit 'password' field from your import files or won't set it during editing and Practique will use ID as password.

Improvements

PRAC-705: Show assigned Blueprint Dimension Category including whole breadcrumb trail

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This has been now improved and users can indicate the desired feedback during creation of the Observation criteria.

Fixes

PRAC-865: Candidate drop down select for Reporting is not sorted in any way

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