The American Board of Pathology On-Line Test Development System. TDAC Instructions

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1 The American Board of Pathology On-Line Test Development System TDAC Instructions Before beginning to create exam questions, turn off the Pop-up Blocker on your internet browser. URL Log In Enter your user name and password and then click on the Login button. Exam Selection Screen After you login, you will have a drop down menu to choose which exam you will be submitting questions for. Select the appropriate exam and click Go. Home Page You will then be at the main interface of the Exam Item Manager. You can always return to this page by clicking New Items in the top toolbar. The New Items screen will display the accession number and stem of all new items created by you and other members of your committee. Although you will only have access to edit items that you created, any item that appears on the New Items screen can be viewed by clicking the item s accession number or stem. Selecting an item on the New Items screen or clicking Item Add in the top toolbar will take you to the same interface, as pictured on the next page.

2 Instructions for adding TDAC questions. Important Note: You may copy the text of any portion of the question and paste it in the appropriate field, HOWEVER, do not paste it directly from a word processor such as MS Word or WordPerfect. It will add invisible extraneous word processing instructions that are not compatible with the HTML editor used in the system. If your text is already in a word processing document, copy the text to a text editor (such as Notepad) and then paste it in the appropriate field. Click on Item Add from the menu across the top of the New Items page.

3 The First, Prev, Next, and Last buttons at the top and bottom of this screen can be used to navigate through the list of new items available for your committee. A Save button will also appear for any items that were created with your account. The large field at the top is for the Stem. Type or paste the stem. You may use the icons across the top of the stem box for bold, italic, and underline, superscript and subscript. Use the symbols icon to add Greek characters, accents, symbols. Please note, the spell check icon is not yet functional. To the right of the subscript icon, you may use the table icon to display and manipulate a pre-formatted table. Once the table icon has been selected a list of numbered table templates will appear along with a printable PDF that displays examples of how each template looks. Click the Open Templates.pdf link and select the print icon that will appear in the upper left corner of the PDF to print. In the table pop-up window click one of the numbered templates to insert it into the stem field. Once inserted, the text in the cells of the table can be removed and updated. The fields for Distractors A-E are arranged down the left side below the stem. Please arrange distractors in alphabetical or numerical order. Be sure to choose the correct answer by clicking the circle. You may use the icons across the top of each distractor box for bold, italic, and underline, superscript and subscript. Use the symbols icon to add Greek characters, accents, symbols. Each distractor field has its own icons and you must select the one(s) that you want for the individual distractor. When you have finished adding distractors and have indicated the correct answer, move to the fields on the right side of the page below the field for the stem. Once you have clicked on one of these fields you may move between fields on this side of the page with the Tab key. Different "versions" of the same question (clones) should be entered as separate questions. You may use the same image for more than one question (except for virtual images). If you are using the same image for more than one question, type the Accession # of the other question(s) in the Incompatible Item field.

4 Use the Comments field for any special notes regarding the question. The statistics field is for office use only. The other fields on the right side must be completed where applicable. These include: References - one is sufficient, or type none Diagnosis (for images, slides, cell panels) Anatomic Site (for images or slides) Visual Aid Code (image, microscopic slide, virtual microscopy, cell panel, etc) Submitter Accession # is for the author s identification on the item Meeting Date (year is sufficient) Keywords - very helpful when searching for a particular topic; often the same as Diagnosis Sub Exam Type - written, practical etc New Exam type - AP/CP, AP/CP/Subspecialty, Subspecialty only, MOC, All Category code - more than one code can be selected by holding down the Control key. (Note: with the new category codes, you may find it easier to work from the PDF version available at and then type the applicable code in the Enter Category Code field. Search capability is available within the category code PDF documents. To search within the PDF file hold down CTRL on your keyboard and click the F key. A box should then appear allowing you to type the word or phrase you want to locate.) Several fields on the Add Item page are required and must be completed before you can save your question. These are: the stem, at least 3 distractors (A-C), sub exam type, exam type, category code, and references. If there is a digital image associated with your item, attach the image to the question in the Add/Edit Images box below the distractors. See the instructions for attaching digitized images below.

5 ABP Digitized Images The ABP requires good quality, high resolution images in JPG format. The system will not accept other file formats. There is a maximum image size, however, the system will not accept images that are larger than 1500 pixels wide or 1500 pixels high. Digital cameras are capable of creating extremely high resolution photographs, which is not necessary for ABP purposes. The end use of the digitized images accepted by the ABP is display in the examination center. The examination center monitors are 20" with a screen area of 1280 by 1024 pixels and True Color (32 bit). The initial view of each image is approximately one-quarter of the 20" screen. In addition, the exam software provides the ability to enlarge each image to fill most of the screen, which is approximately 1500 x 1500 pixels. Resizing Digitized Images If your digital images are larger than 1500 (either wide or high), you must use a photo editing program to make the image smaller. Microsoft Paint, which comes with your PC, is very easy to use for this purpose. Open your image in Microsoft Paint. From the menu, choose Image > Attributes. Under Units, be sure Pixels is selected. This screen displays the image size, which you will use to determine how much you need to reduce the file size. Example: The image Width is 1600 and the Height is Since the width is larger than 1500, we must proportionately reduce the size of the image. Divide the 1500 by the width, or 1600, which is approximately 93%. Click OK to close the Attributes window. From the menu, choose Image > Stretch/Skew. Under Stretch, type in 93 for both Horizontal and Vertical. These numbers must be the same so that the image is not distorted. Click OK to close the Stretch and Skew window. To recheck your file size, choose Image > Attributes. The image Width is 1488 and the Height is Click OK to close the Attributes window. Be sure to save the file. Changing Digitized Image File Types If your digital images are not in JPG format, changing the file extension DOES NOT change the file format. You must you a photo editing program. Microsoft Paint, which comes with your PC, is very easy to use for this purpose. Open your image in Microsoft Paint. From the menu, choose File > Save As. In the Save As Type field, choose JPG. Click OK to save the file. Attaching Digitized Images You must first Save the item before you can attach an image to it. To upload the first image, click on Image 1 under Add/Edit Images at the bottom left of the Edit screen. You can upload an image from your computer, or attach an image that you have already uploaded to the Item Bank server.

6 To upload a new image, click the Browse button under New Image Upload. Choose the drive/directory, choose the jpg image file, and click the Open button. Your filename will appear in the Browse field. Click the Upload! button. Your image will appear in a thumbnail. Click the Close Window button. In the Edit window, click the Save button to attach the image to the question. In some instances, you may have one image for more than one question that you have added, so the image would have previously been uploaded. To attach an existing image to another question, click in the field under Existing Image Select, type the image name including the JPG extension, and click the Select! button. Click the Close Window button. In the Edit window, click the Save button to attach the image to the question. You can now view the image(s), they display below the question. You may attach up to four images per question. For microscopic slides, the number assigned to the question by the test system should be written on the labels of the slides that you are submitting for test committee review. When you have completed all of the required fields and added your images, click Save. (You may also click Save at any time and go back to edit the question or add images later, provided the required fields are completed.). If any required fields are not filled in, a message will appear. You must complete the required fields in order to save your question. If you should forget to save your work and click the Add Item button to add another question, you will get a popup window that reminds you that you didn't save the question and asks if you are sure you wish to navigate away from the page. Once your item has been saved, you may go to the new items page, click on the item number and retrieve the question. At this point, you may click on "View in Examination Format" in the lower right portion of the form and see the item exactly as a candidate would see it during an exam.