In response to the escalation of the epidemic in Taiwan, the Academy has been promoting the digital transformation of its training program. Since May 19th, 2021 all training classes have been converted to online classes, including all the examinations, which will now be conducted remotely online. Since June 21st, 2021, the Academy has been carrying out examinations for the Judicial Officer Class, the Pre-Service Course for the Prosecutors Selection Class, the Prosecutors Training Class, and has successfully completed 15 online remote examinations. However, since the Central Epidemic Command Center had maintained a nation-wide Covid-19 Epidemic Level 3 Alert until July 26th and in order not to affect the training period of the Judicial Officer Class and the Prosecutors Selection Class, the oral examinations of the third-phase training period for the 60th Judicial Officer Class and the 3rd Prosecutors Selection Class held by the Academy on July 17th were also conducted remotely online.
To make the first remote online oral exams run smoothly, the Educational Affairs Section of the Academy invited all the participants to an online lecture on oral examination practice during the preparation process and held a joint online meeting to discuss the issues of video connection, fairness, process, troubleshooting of the online oral examinations, and to confirm its mode.
This time's remote online oral examination was conducted in the same way as the previous remote online mock judgment examination. Trainees read the electronic files archives in remote mode. The same group of oral examinees would discuss through the online video conference room when accessing the case files. During the scheduled oral examination period, the lecture would be added to the online video conference room for the oral examination. The examination invigilating staff would conduct file accessing, online invigilation, timing and assistance during the oral examination.
The oral examinations were divided into morning and afternoon sessions, each session was divided into three periods, each period having two groups of 4-5 trainees discussing civil litigation, criminal and public prosecution while proceeding simultaneously. The morning session also had two groups of Prosecutors Selection Class joining, making a total of 20 groups in the morning session and 18 groups in the afternoon session. On that day (17th) from 7:30 a.m. onwards, the students took part in the online remote oral examinations for the civil, criminal, prosecutorial and Prosecutors Selection Class respectively according to the designated time slots. The oral examinations lasted 580 minutes, and the examination invigilating staff were able to control each of the 38 oral examinations without slacking off. The participants of the lecture on oral examinations and the trainees taking part in the examinations were satisfied with the good timing of each session, the smooth operation of the Internet video during the file accessing and oral examinations, and the clarity of the audio without an echo.
During this epidemic, after completing the challenges of online teaching and remote online examinations, the Academy for the Judiciary has completed its first remote online oral examination and continues to steadily promote the digital transformation of its training programs, laying an important foundation for the innovation of judicial education and opening up a whole new landscape.