Use of personal information in iVTG

The WiV (Werkgroep interuniversitaire voortgangstoets geneeskunde/Working group interuniversity progress test of medicine) uses personal information to process the progress tests results, to present individual feedback in the ProF system, and to determine the annual exam results for some of the participating universities.

Prior to a test, the following data is collected and processed for each student: institution and education of the student, student identification number, and measurement level for the respective test. After taking the test, the given answers are added to this information. This data is saved in a central national database, where the information is stored for a maximum of 10 years after the student’s graduation. Mutations in this information are saved in a traceable manner in the database.

For each participating student, the following scores are calculated and stored in the central database: total score, correct answer score, incorrect answer score, and question mark score. These scores are also determined and saved per subdomain (category and discipline). Based on this data, aggregated reports are made for test analysis and setting the standards. After defining the standards, the test results are determined for every student and saved in the central database.

Based on the aforementioned data, every student receives an individual report of the test results. Furthermore, aggregated reports per institution are made.

In order to provide individual longitudinal feedback to students in ProF, data from the central database is exported, processed and saved in the ProF database after each test (old data in ProF is then removed). Along with this data, for every active student (i.e. in the progress test) the following information is stored: institution and education of the student, student identification number, measurement level for each test taken, test result, total score, correct answer score, incorrect answer score, and question mark score. This data is also determined and saved per subdomain (category and discipline). Besides, the sufficient-score and good-score are calculated and stored. In addition, the aggregated data per measurement moment is determined and saved

The ProF system uses Surfconext to enable login of students and staff members. Herewith, the universities supply the following information (attributes) via Surfconext to ProF in order to authorise the student: the student identification number and institution’s code. The login attempts to ProF are documented in a logfile along with corresponding time points and attributes. The logfile is stored transiently in order to solve login problems and problems with Surfconext.

For monitoring the use and effect of the ProF system, views of the pages are logged together with an anonymised ID-code of the user and institution’s code. The IP-address of the user is masked in an untraceable manner.

To determine the annual exam results, an online computing system is used. For this system, after each test the following data is extracted from the central database: for each active student his/her institution, student identification number, measurement moment, and result per test taken. The institution that uses the online computing system uploads a file with absence information, containing for each student: student identification number, (corrected) measurement moment, absence code (i.e. non-absent, absent with permission, absent without permission). Based on this, the system produces the exam result for each student involved. The data in this system is removed with every new test.

The aforementioned information can be used for research purposes under strict conditions. Permission must be granted by every concerned responsible (in case of non-anonymised data, also the students involved must give permission). Every data extraction for scientific research will be registered in a data request register.