Monitoring academic progress in a Faculty of Pharmacy

This paper describes the implementation of a system for continuous monitoring of university students’ academic progression, integrated within the Kiro online platform employed in the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Pavia. This system includes a nonselective entry test at the beginning of the student’s academic career and an analysis of the student’s test results and platform activities during his career. The present study, limited to a pilot course, preludes to the construction of a database containing the results of all tests taken by the student (and his/her online activity patterns), with the aim of building: 1) a measuring system for early individuation of student learning obstacles; 2) a tool allowing teachers of advanced courses to evaluate student knowledge of core subjects; and therefore 3) a feedback tool facilitating improvements of the program of study, by measuring its effectiveness. We discuss the actuation of the system and its possible evolutions, the analysis of outcomes, and critical issues.