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Perspectives Symposium 2022: Perspectives on Virtualization
Perspectives is a one-day symposium hosted by Touchstone Institute in Toronto, Canada. The aim is to facilitate connections among disciplines to encourage communication and knowledge-sharing around topics in assessment and education.
A hybrid event had been planned, but rising COVID-19 case counts were resulted in our hosting a strictly virtual event reaching our largest audience yet with 130 attendees. A post-Symposium survey yielded a high overall rating for the event. Respondents found the event engaging, with speakers’ presentations garnering the highest scores. Recorded presentations have been uploaded to our website with closed captioning so the presentations can be broadly accessible.
Corporate Communications
In 2021-22, Touchstone Institute’s website was updated to reflect changes in administration of services that have been “re-imagined” in response to the pandemic. Exams that have multiple choice questionnaires (MCQs) are now described as virtual MCQ, with information added on technical requirements for an optimal exam experience. As exams migrated to virtual delivery and hybrid models (in-person and virtual), updates were announced on our News page and on our professional networks.
Significant adjustments were made to the overall website to bring it up to AODA (accessibility) standards. The Ethical Exam Behaviour page was added to one of our main menus, making this information more accessible for candidates and other stakeholders.
A Touchstone Institute Perspectives Series (TIPS) report was created and posted that addresses exam security. This is a timely topic with the move to more online and remotely proctored assessments. The article outlines important considerations to create testing environments that mitigate against security threats.
Over 2021-22, we continued to see increased social media interest and increased our subscriber base for both CELBAN and corporate newsletters.
Conferences, Presentations & Research
Grossutti, D., & Pépin, C, Strachan, A. (April 27 2021). CELBAN: Same Exam – New Modality. Partners in Integration and Education of Internationally Educated Nurses (PIE-IEN) Conference.
Gallo, J., Huszar, K. & Ramlogan, A. (2021). Communication through Simulation: Developing a Curricular Program for Internationally Educated Health Professionals. 2021 Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE) Annual Conference.
Grossutti, D., S. Nguyan & Tran, A. (September 29-30, 2021) Transitioning to Virtual Exams. UCAN Partners Conference presentation.
Gallo, J. & Strachan, A. (October 17-20 2021) Communication through Simulation: Experiential Communication Programming for Internationally Educated Health Professionals, Touchstone Institute. Poster Presentation at the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare (ICCH).
McParland, T., Mendel, J., Monteiro, S., Tran, A. (October 2021) A Virtual Nursing OSCE: Challenges, Achievements and Prospects. Canadian Network of Agencies for Regulation (CNAR) Conference.
Madhany, S., Masnyk, K. & Strachan, A. (October 2021). New Practices in Evaluating and Recognizing Professional Communication Competencies. Canadian Network of Agencies for Regulation (CNAR) Conference.
Stewart, G. & Strachan, A. (2021) Sustaining an Occupation-specific Language Assessment for the Canadian Health-care Field. TESL Canada Journal. Vol. 38(1)
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