The International Medical Education Credit Scheme (IMECSTM) aims to provide an objective, comparable and transferrable measure of the quality and quantity of teaching work done by medical professionals. It was designed by Prof. Dr. D. W. R. Gray at the Nuffield Department of Surgery, Oxford University, as a way to increase motivation for accomplished doctors to participate in educational activities.
In the IMECS scheme, credits are periodically awarded to teachers according to carefully thought-out rules based on three key variables:
- the amount of teaching performed
- the perceived quality of teaching as indicated by students after each lesson
- the results achieved by students at specific relevant exams
To facilitate the gathering and processing of this data, Artman Technologies has developed a server-based application with interfaces for students, teachers and administrators. The IMECSTM application has the following features:
- Based on Oracle relational database
- Web Browser compatible front end
- 5 modules:
- Student
- Teacher
- Timetable
- Supervisor
The eventual maturing of the application and IMECSTM in general resulted in the establishment of a dedicated company, IMEC Systems, which manages the development and marketing of IMECS worldwide.