Background: Pharmacology is one of the cornerstones in medical curricula, besides, examination is an effective way to evaluate the teaching quality and student outcome. Objectives: This study was undertaken to demonstrate the examination innovation and construction of online exam questions bank of Pharmacology. Methods: The pharmacological exercises compiled previously were attached with standarded parameters and used as main source of online exam questions bank, the multifaceted parameters of questions were determined for easy to construct test paper. We next sought to apply this new established online exam database to the fourth semester students of nursing and the fifth semester students of clinical medicine. Results: We successfully established an online exam questions bank of 3000 questions containing single choice, multiple choice and true/false and covering all of knowledge points in syllabus. And then, we successfully formed the exam papers from online questions bank abide by the examination syllabus and applied to the fourth semester students of nursing and fifth semester students of clinical medicine. The exam scores were respectively higher than those of sixth semester students of nursing and the seventh semester students of clinical medicine who used traditional examination method last year. Conclusion: These findings indicated that the new established online exam questions bank may better promote the teaching quality and student outcome and lay the foundation for the further implementation of the online exam.
Key words: Pharmacology, Exam questions bank database, Exam reform, Clinical medicine, Nursing.