Highly Scalable Online Examination Using a Combined Dual-Platform Approach in Medical Education

The Covid-19 pandemic moved the medical education into online and hybrid environments. We designed a solution based on live and timed multiple choice questions (MCQs) tests delivered through Microsoft Teams. At home, students were using a second internet-connected device (mobile phone) to fill in a complementary Google Form with identification data and the answers to the MCQs that kept unrolling on their computer screen. In the end, there was a 40-second period for answers submission, otherwise the application stopped accepting them. We processed 3137 tests for both first and second study year programs (61.6% Romanian and 38.4% English) with very positive feedback from students. Our method is highly scalable, with strictly paced and non-scrollable MCQs, and has automated results processing. Moreover, it provided students with MCQs answering training for future exams of this type, like the graduation or the residency ones, in a time when all final exams were regulated to be held in a classic oral manner.