For the practical exam in this core first-year unit of study, instead of in-person practical skills exams, we used Canvas Quizzes to deliver an online practical skills test where students were asked to view videos of student clinicians performing those same practical skills the first years would have done in their own practical exam, and to rate the performance of those student clinicians using the marking rubric that would have been applied in the practical exam itself.
The videos were sourced (with permission) from actual student videos submitted as part of a practical skills barrier task in a second year unit of study, so they were authentic demonstrations of student skill level, and included errors that our own students would likely have made during their own practical exams.
This online assessment task will not have been developed for a single-use purpose: this task can be repurposed into an online skills training and practical exam preparation resource for future years, thereby also benefiting future student cohorts. Furthermore, given the video barrier task for second year students will still exist in future years, we will be able to swap in new videos over time, and can therefore deliver this as a formal online exam again in the future if needed.