2019 in Brief: Academic Assessment Software in Egyptian Universities

Egyptian universities adopting academic assessment software has been the most talked about topic within the halls of the Ministry of Higher Education and among academic staff in 2019.

 2019 was not an exceptional year because it was only the end of an entire decade. It was also an eventful year that made Egyptian higher education institutions skip years into the future of assessment development, using Computer Based Exams.

Throughout the past year, Qorrect developers experienced many significant and unique moments.

First, Qorrect assessment system was used in the first successful trial of a unified computerized assessment for 3226 6th year medical students in 21 faculties throughout Egypt at the same time.

The trial was held under the supervision of Dr. Khaled Abd El Ghaffar, the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Mohammed Lotayef, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Universities Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Universities, and a number of university presidents.

Presidential Decision: Egyptian Universities to Adopt Computerized Assessment

The statement of Dr. Mohamed El Tayeb, Assistant Minister of Higher Education, on the significance of computerized exams in universities made our end of 2019 a much happier one. In his interview with Al Shorouk News, he stated that the president has explicitly commissioned the ministry to implement assessment software programs in universities to prevent human error in exam process.

Know more about “Standardized Tests: History and Implementation in Universities.”

Moreover, Dr. El Tayeb revealed that the ministry has conducted unified exams for engineering and computer science sectors “like the unified assessment held before for the faculties of medicine.” 

He said that they, in the ministry, have now “finished writing the legislation that obliges medical graduates to do profession licencing tests.” We are very hopeful that this new law will not only benefit medical students but will also help add more value to graduates entering the labor market.      

Now, let’s show you the major moments that have led to the beginning of the universities and higher institutions race towards implementing computerized exams and assessment software besides what we have achieved in 2019 to support the Ministry of Higher Education’s directions.

It’s worth mentioning that Dr. Khaled Abd El Ghaffar and Dr. El Tayeb—previously—witnessed Qorrect’s successful trial of the unified computerized assessment held in 21 faculties of medicine for the first time in Egypt. 

They closely viewed the whole trial and followed up on it through a conference video call from the Supreme Council of Universities on March 7, 2019. We will later on elaborate on the events of this trial. But first let’s backtrack to the beginning of 2019.

1. January 2019: Qorrect Sponsors the First International Conference for Higher Education Development at Benha University

We started this year, in Qorrect, by sponsoring the First International Conference for Higher Education Development. The conference was held at Benha University on January 22-23, 2019.

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The International Conference for Higher Education Development, Benha University

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Dr. Azza Abdallah, Director of the Measurement and Assessment Center, with Mr. Ahmed Hassan during the conference

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Dr. Naser El Gizawy, Supervisor of Scientific, Cultural, and International Relations and Development Projects with Mr. Ahmed Hassan

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Dr. Alaa Abdel Halim Marzouq, Governor of Qalyubia, and Dr. Hussein El Maghraby, Acting President of the University, giving the honorary shield to Mr. Ahmed Hassan

Mr. Ahmed Hassan—Qorrect’s Sales Manager—delivered a speech about the features of the assessment system and its importance in creating and managing computerized exams. He also explained to the attending faculties’ members its series of success in several Egyptian faculties and institutions and its core functions.

On the sidelines, an honorary award was given to Mr. Hassan, Qorrect’s representative, by Dr. Alaa Abdel Halim Marzouk, the Governor of Qalyubia, and Dr. Hussein Al Maghraby, the University Vice President for Education.

Read “Computerizing Exams: Overview and implementation in Egyptian Universities.”

It’s important to point out that Benha University is considered one of the most significant Egyptian universities that seek developing the assessment process and raising its quality. In 2019, Benha university adopted the US number 1 program in autograding—Remark—to autograde exams in all 15 faculties of the university.

2. March 2019: Qorrect Assessment System Trial Success in 21 Medicine Faculties

3226 students from 21 medicine faculties throughout Egypt participated in this trial as a first step (17 governmental faculties, 2 private medicine faculties, and the Armed Forces College of Medicine).

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Dr. Khaled Abd El Ghaffar—the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Dr. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, and Dr. Mohammed Lotayef following up on Qorrect trial

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During the examination using Qorrect at the Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, source: Al Bayan News

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University Presidents and Faculty Deans closely following up on the progress of the assessment done by Qorrect 

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Dr. Mohamed El Tayeb, Assistant Minister of Higher Education with Mr. Ahmed Hassan, Qorrect’s Sales Manager

The main objective of this was to experiment unified computerized exams, in reality, in preparation for implementing them in all higher education institutions as per the president’s directions.

After the success of the trial, Dr. Khaled Abd El Ghaffar—the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research—declared that this is a real opportunity for the presidents of universities to start training students on this model—Qorrect. This would be a start in order to computerize and unify all health sector faculty exams.

On the other hand, according to Cairo 24, Dr. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, who attended the trial with the Minister of Higher Education since the start, commented that

“What’s amazing is not just that this happened even though we were upset about the troubles of the Internet… What’s more amazing is that this happened with the capabilities of Egyptian universities, Egyptian government employees, and an Egyptian programming company.”

He continued that this happened “with the participation of over 3200 student Egyptian students from medicine faculties that were not obliged at all to gather at the same time and take an exam that will not add to their overall grades, if not for the true desire for better learning and assessment.”

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Professors of the Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, with Mr. Ahmed Gamal, an accredited trainer of Qorrect, after the training

The success of this trial confirmed to us that academic assessment software systems are an essential step in our road towards higher education development.

3. May 2019: Sponsoring the First Conference of Measurement and Assessment, Menoufia University

In May 2019, we were honored in Qorrect to sponsor the First Conference of Measurement and Assessment, held at the Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University, on Tuesday July 16, 2019, in cooperation with FAIMER Foundation, which is specialized in education and medical scientific research development.

The faculty adopted Qorrect assessment system to start automating exam creation, which makes it the first faculty in Menoufia University to take this step.

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Dr. Noha Azmy, Director of the Institution of Measurement and Assessment, and Dr. Gamal Dahshan, the Dean of the Faculty of Education, Menoufia University, during the conference

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Dr. Ahmed Gamal Al Din, Dr. Gihan Sadeq, and Mr. Ahmed Hassan, with the conference speakers

Al Bawaba News covered the event held under the supervision of Dr. Ahmed Gamal Al Din, the Faculty Dean, and Dr. Gihan Sadeq, the Director of the faculty’s Measurement and Assessment Unit.

The attendees—Dr. Noha Azmy, the Director of the Institution of Measurement and Assessment, Dr. Gamal Dahshan, the Faculty of Education’s Dean, and many professors from different Egyptian universities—discussed different ways for assessment development.

The discussions also involved ways of assessment within the workplace and how to ask a large number of questions through edtech solution.

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Mr. Ahmed Hassan during his speech at the First Conference of Measurement and Assessment, the Faculty of Medicine, Menoufia University

4. August 2019: Adopting Qorrect to Create and Manage Computerized Assessment in Tanta University

In August 2019, the Unit of Measurement and Assessment of Tanta University signed a contract with Qorrect to implement the computerized assessment system in 4 faculties in the university as a primal stage, for it to be applied in all faculties later on.

This comes as a prompt response to the Minister of Higher Education’s plan to computerize exams in all Egyptian universities soon. Further, this meets the unit’s target to raise the efficiency of the assessment process in the university.

Dr. Tarek Fayed, the Director of the Unit of Measurement and Assessment of Tanta University, and Dr. Manal Al Baramawy and Dr. Ramadan Maen, the Unit’s Deputy Directors, adopted Qorrect assessment software system in order to computerize exams in the faculties of medicine, education, law, and arts, a decision that was only taken after testing the system and doing a comprehensive study to make sure it is the best system.

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Eng. Ahmed Abdallah Adel with Tana University Professors during Qorrect assessment system training

On the other hand, Qorrect team held workshops to train professors at Tanta University on using the assessment system and recognizing its features and functions. During the sessions, several other things were explained, like how to create question banks and balanced tests and generate test results and reports analyzing these results.

5. October 2019: Adopting Qorrect at the Faculty of Economics & Political Science, Cairo University

Aiming at starting the process of computerizing exams as soon as possible in order to keep pace with the Ministry of Higher Education’s development plans, the Faculty of Economics & Political Science, Cairo University, adopted Qorrect system in October 2019.

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Dr. Mahmoud Al Saeed, the Faculty of Economics and Political Science Dean, with Mr. Mohamed Haggag and Mr. Omar Salah, Qorrect’s representatives, after the faculty adopted the system

Dr. Mahmoud Al Saeed, the Faculty of Economics and Political Science Dean, received our representatives back then. He stressed that the faculty adopted Qorrect academic assessment system due to its many features that will benefit both faculty professors and students.

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Dr. Hanan Mohamed, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, and Eng. Hanan El Geneidy, Director of Laboratories Unit, with the academic staff

Moreover, the dean said that the faculty aims to gain international accreditation, since it already received local accreditation. International accreditation requires the applying educational institution to have a computerized exams system.

6. December 2019: Al-Azhar Medicine Faculties All Adopt Qorrect and an Introductory Demo at Kafr Al Sheikh University

Striving towards computerizing exams in Egyptian universities, 6 faculties of medicine at Al-Azhar University decided that Qorrect will be their system of choice.

The system was adopted in 3 faculties of medicine for boys and 3 other faculties of medicine for girls, allowing all faculties of medicine at Al Azhar University to have computerized exams, following closely the footsteps of the faculties of medicine at Cairo, Ain Shams, Tanta, and Menoufia universities which already have Qorrect.

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Mr. Ahmed Hassan, Qorrect’s Sales Manager, during a special introductory session at Kafr Al Sheikh University

At the same month, Qorrect did a presentation at the Faculty of Arts, Kafr Al Sheikh University, to introduce the system and its functions. The presentation had a wide number of attendees like Dr. Walid Shawky Al Beheiry the Dean, Dr. Emad Zayed the Director of the Unit of Measurement and Assessment, and many of the faculty members and department presidents.

It’s worth mentioning that Kafr Al Sheikh University is “gaining a reputation nationally as a research centre, ranking fourth among the country’s universities in international research citations,” according to Times Higher Education.

Features of Creating and Managing Computerized Exams Via Qorrect

Computerizing exams using academic assessment software programs in higher education institutions is necessary to turn universities and higher institutions in Egypt into smart educational institutions and staying in touch with the world digitization trends in the higher education sector.

Qorrect is an advanced system that helps educational institutions to create question banks and balanced computerized exams, it also supports over 20 different types of questions that are suitable with the educational objectives. 

Moreover, it allows you to add mathematical equations and special characters, figures, and drawings. It also helps deliver the assessment to students via computers, tablets, smartphones, or even printed papers (to be scanned and automatically graded).

Furthermore, Qorrect assesses tests and generates detailed reports of students’ results, analyzes them, gets you any student’s academic performance assessment within a few minutes only, and completely prevents cheating by easily creating multiple test forms and questions of the same exam.

Besides, it comprises many necessary standards for any balanced assessment like outlining its period, the number of questions, and its difficulty range. 

It also guarantees objectively grading tests, removing human error factor from the equation and accurately assessing student’s performance.

Finally, we invite all Egyptian faculties and higher institutions that have not implemented Qorrect until now to contact us in order to schedule free demos

Free demos are held at the educational institution with the attendance of the Dean, the Deputy of Student Affairs, or the Director of Measurement and Assessment Unit, for an introduction to how Qorrect system works and its unique features.

To know more about Qorrect, the comprehensive assessment system, please press here.

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Sources:

  1. http://gate.ahram.org.eg/News/2335209.aspx.
  2. https://bit.ly/2ZlYWek.
  3. https://www.elwatannews.com/news/details/4468177.

About Yasmine Nasr

Yasmine Nasr has been part of the content world since 2017. She has worked as a translator, content writer, editor, copyeditor, and English language instructor. She holds a BA degree in English, Translation, and Literature, plus a degree in literary and media translation from the American University in Cairo. Today Yasmine is a content writer interested in education technology, especially exams autograding, computer-based exams, evaluation & assessment systems, and LMS, in relation to academic accreditation with the aim to improve exams quality and student learning and experience.

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