BCIT's Medical Radiography program launches new online critique system

Thousands of data items clearly arrayed in a small space: RADICL solves a logistical puzzle for Medical Radiography instructors.

On Monday, June 2, 156 students in BCIT's Medical Radiography Technician program began their practicums at various hospitals across British Columbia. Part of the students' course requirement is to submit critiques of x-ray cases that they take while on practicum. Each case consists of at least three images of an anatomical part; each image requires a detailed written critique. All images and critiques — sixty-six per student — must be submitted to the instructors for review. Keeping on top of over 10,000 images and critiques over the course of the practicum has been a serious logistical challenge for the instructors.

Previously, students submitted their images and critiques via a laborious and unstable process using WebCT. Students had to create an html page for each of their sixty-six images. What is more, instructors could not easily identify what had been submitted via the WebCT system, nor when it had been submitted. Also, the WebCT forms (Word Documents) could not be locked. This allowed the potential for students to edit an already graded submission.

On May 1, the LTC delivered a brand-new, customized online system for managing these submissions. The Radiographic Image Critique Log, or RADICL, provides a user-friendly and clearly defined process for students and instructors. Students are now able to edit and revise their work before they submit them for review. Once submitted, students can still view their critiques but cannot edit them. RADICL has an auto-save feature that allows students to save unfinished critiques, which is important in a hospital environment, where rad techs can be called away before they can complete their critique.

Using RADICL, the instructors can see at a glance the number of submitted cases in the order in which they were submitted — a feature they wanted but could not have previously. Also, RADICL shows exactly what the students have submitted (i.e., chest, arm, hip) which, as hard as it is to believe, could not be provided by WebCT. Instructors can also see how much of the course work each student has completed, the progress of each student in relation to the whole class (see image above), and it reveals the status of each submission (i.e., whether it is • submitted, • pending review by instructor, • pending review by student, • accepted, • unaccepted, and • any special interest cases).


Using RADICL, the instructors can see the how many submissions each student has made; and the colour-coding helps instructors prioritize their work.


It was developed using AJAX techniques (specifically PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript). As these are common web technologies, the system overcame the technical issues of using WebCT at hospital sites that could not support the most current version of Java, which is required to run WebCT. While RADICL was developed specifically for the MEDRAD program, it can be adapted to other assignment-submission and reporting tasks.

RADICL is a successful collaboration between LTC staff and Dori Kaplun and Valerie Palm of the Medical Radiography program. The project was tightly managed by IDC Kathy Siedlaczek who made no technical assumptions (making assumptions is a common error in managing projects of this kind). The success of this project, which involved clients, LTC staff and over 150 end-users, is due in major part to the careful and thorough planning that took place well before the first line of code was written. Dori and Valerie clearly articulated their needs and ran the application through heavy tests in advance of this week's launch. The interface design and programming were carried out by a talented production staff including Alistair Boakes, Nancy Berke, Paul Razzell and Edwin Rowan, all of the LTC.