Tens of thousands of pages per year

PLOT (Province of Limburg Education and Training) trains Limburg’s police, fire brigade and ambulance service. Its Police School provides basic training to around 170 new people every year. This is delivered by about 100 teachers – often professionals who come to teach after their working day. Furthermore, the entire corps visits several times a year to maintain and develop their skills.

Obviously, these courses are evaluated too: the Police School alone has several examination periods each year for its basic courses (inspector and chief inspector), as well as for its advanced courses. Until recently, the tests were all on paper.

Johnny Nys, administrative assistant: “For each test, I used to email a template to the teacher in charge, who filled in their questions. They sent the document back and then we had to print it, bundle it, hand it out to the trainees, collect it, sort it by subject, scan it, and then send it to the teachers for marking. This resulted in a thick wad of paper for each trainee. You don’t want to know how many staples I had to remove each week!” (laughs)

More possibilities and ease of use

So PLOT went looking for a digital tool to reduce the administrative burden. “Our other criteria were functionality and user-friendliness,” explains education support coordinator Jolynn Debacker. “assessmentQ scored very high in both areas. User-friendliness is always important, but even more so for teachers who teach alongside their full-time job.”

PLOT Police School has been using assessmentQ since January 2024. It has digitised all the tests for the basic training course for inspectors because this course has the largest number of tests. In the autumn, it will digitise the basic training course for chief inspectors, and then the advanced training courses. “We are working test by test,” says Bert Boelen, the basic training courses coordinator. “When their courses come up, the teachers work out their database of questions. I’ve observed that even the less tech-savvy people get the hang of the system very quickly.”

“Among both teachers and trainees, even the less tech-savvy people get the hang of the system very quickly.”

Bert Boelen, basic training courses coordinator, PLOT Police School

“In terms of functionality, our biggest concern was cheating,” says Johnny. “How do you ensure that trainees do not look up answers during tests? The Safe Exam Browser that assessmentQ uses is ideal for this. And there are other useful features too, including different types of questions and the opportunity to ask questions in a random order. We want to start by making all our tests digital, but then we will certainly experiment more with the different options.”

“Cheating was our biggest concern when we switched to digital exams, but the Safe Exam Browser is very safe.”

Johnny Nys, administrative assistant, PLOT Police School

More objective evaluation

“We’re already using assessmentQ to submit and evaluate personal assignments,” adds Jolynn. During the course, the trainees have to write a paper on general legal principles. We assess these using a number of criteria. The marker gives feedback and a score per criterion, and everything is added up automatically. This makes the feedback much more transparent: the trainees are assessed uniformly and get richer, more in-depth feedback.”

“When papers are assessed, the trainees are presented with richer, more in-depth feedback.”

Jolynn Debacker, education support coordinator, PLOT Police School

“Pedagogically speaking, transparency is a great asset. Every test is an opportunity to learn. In the past, we did share the correct answers with trainees, but only on request. Now trainees can request them at the touch of a button. As a result, they are viewed much more. I also get more questions from trainees about the feedback. Based on these questions, we sometimes adjust our evaluation criteria.”

“I only hear good feedback from the trainees about assessmentQ’s user-friendliness,” continues Johnny. “This is a great relief, because they don’t all have equally good computer skills. For some, the evaluations are actually quicker now, because they no longer have to write by hand.”

Full expansion

The next step is a first digital exam. PLOT Police School is also looking forward to this with confidence. As Johnny explains, “We know we can count on the Televic Education team. They have responded to emails very quickly right from the start, and they have an extensive help centre that answers all our questions.”

“They’ve also implemented an easier way to mark anonymously,” adds Bert. “I’m already curious about how we will digitise oral exams in the future, because that also looks promising. But first we will guide our teachers through the various types of question. I’m certain that this will lead to better tests with more objective results.”

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