What digital solutions are expected in the autumn semester of the Faculty of Pharmacy? - These are the experiences from the latest electronic examination period in the interpretation of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology: Calmness is the key

31 August 2020

Slowly but surely, we arrived at Part 5 of our series of articles summarizing the experiences, practices and solutions of the digital or absence examination period of the Faculty of Pharmacy. In addition, this article provides a reflection on one of the most exciting institutes of the Faculty, the Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology and Biopharmacy. Students usually interact with the Institute in the third year, where they learn, among other things, the mechanism of operation and handling of the machines needed to make different pharmaceuticals, and how to make tablets, granules, and other formulations. In the previous part of our series, you could read about how the digital exam period was conducted around the house of the Department of Pharmaceutical Biology.

For an overloaded Unipoll, an extended exam may be the solution

In consideration of the emerged and known epidemic situation, as in all Institutes, all examinations in Pharmaceutical Technology were scheduled as electronic examinations. These exams were conducted in the Unipoll system, supported and recommended by the University of Pécs, under parallel Teams supervision. Students responded very flexibly to changes made in the spirit of more or less randomness and momentary, unforeseen need. Based on the experiences, they helped to make the online exams as smooth as possible by understanding and cooperating in this particular situation. Furthermore, there were no technical disruptions from students. However, the Unipoll system is often, but mainly, overloaded when hundreds of students across PTE start their electronic exams at the same time. Experience has shown that extending the exam start time interval to at least 30-60 minutes and extending the exam underway can solve the problem.

Good advice as digital send-off

It is advisable to emphasize already in the Neptune message of the exam that they should be more patient because of the overloaded system, often making screenshots or photos of the screen with their answers. It can also help a lot if the exam is announced in the late afternoon. In a problematic technical situation, both the professor and the student need to remain calm and the student questions should be answered in turn. In this case, it is advisable to enter the Unipoll interface (if possible) and check the level of completion of the interested student's question set.