Measurement and evaluation

While we lack data on the exact performance of our course participants in the individual activities of the IBT (individual assessments and tests' results were collated and kept with the core IBT team in South Africa, and only shared directly with each participant), we have aggregate data from the following sources:
  1. The initial registration database (i.e. waiting list from the previous IBT run of 2016) . We used this data to collect demographics on our course participants (supplementary 1)
  2.  Three surveys designed to monitor our learners experience throughout the course, and their satisfaction and progress.  Those surveys were distributed at the start of the course (supplementary 2), the middle (supplementary 3) and end points (supplementary 4) as can be seen from Figure \ref{287326}. In this figure, we also track this information against participants' attendance and withdrawal patterns (supplementary 5). Absence pattern is the difference between the total number of registered participants (73), and the present and withdrawn participants in each session, hence it is not explicitly shown.
  3.  There is also the data identifying participants who earned a certificate  upon successfully satisfying the requirements of the course (supplementary 6). We corroborated the self-reported success status from our participants against aggregate class statistics shared by the core IBT team, because in addition to the official IBT certificate from the University of Cape Town (South Africa), the local participants also appreciated a certificate of completion from the University of Khartoum.
  4. Another final source of data is the local course staff themselves, and the extent to which the course experience has been of value to them (supplementary 8).
Collectively, we use this data to investigate factors associated with a successful experience (or alternatively, failure to satisfy the course requirements or complete withdrawal from the IBT), so that we are better informed for future course runs, or similar training initiatives. In particular, our surveys (also see supplementary 2, 3 and 4) focus on the following aspects: participants' expectations, culture and  interactions with each other and use of the online resources (Vula and mconf).