In month four of the DFT year, you need to complete a Multi-Source Feedback (MSF) survey  to obtain anonymous feedback from your colleagues. This is a very powerful assessment tool which should help you greatly in your path to becoming an excellent dentist. The MSF is electronic and anonymous. It requests feedback from at least eight of your colleagues, and when the feedback has been given, a report will appear in your e-portfolio which will contain the collated results of the questionnaire and the comments given by your colleagues. Your TPD will see the results initially and will, if necessary, be able to give you feedback and support on the content of the MSF.

To commence the MSF:

• Go to the Dashboard of your e-portfolio and click on ‘Multisource Feedback - Invitation Form’ which is in the Portfolio Documentation section of the centre column.
• This will take you to a page which invites you to start the process.
• Click on the ‘Add New’ button and an empty table form will appear.
• You  must now enter in the table the names and email addresses of at least eight colleagues. As a minimum of five people’s responses are needed to provide feedback in this exercise, it is recommended that you provide ten names and email addresses as some of those invited may not reply. You can add a maximum of twenty names and email addresses
• Please ensure that you have entered the email addresses correctly – at present there is no function to correct email address errors.
• If you try to complete the form with less than eight names, it will tell you that there is an error and request further names.
• When you have completed your list, please check the tick box at the bottom of the page and then click on the ‘Complete’ button.
• If you have not completed your list of names and addresses, you may save the list and return to it later by clicking on the ’Save Draft’ button.

At this point, the e-portfolio will send an email to each of your named colleagues, explaining the process and asking them for anonymous feedback. Please inform them that they will receive and email requesting feedback and ask that they complete it as soon as possible. If any colleague does not receive an email, please ask them to check their ‘Junk Email’ folder.’

There is a link in the email they receive which will take them to a feedback page in your e-portfolio. This page has a list of questions in a column on the left of the page, with a row of buttons scoring from 1 to 9; with 1 meaning ‘Very Poor’ and nine meaning ‘Excellent’ There is an extra score point of N/A to be used if your colleague cannot give any insight into that question.

When five of your colleagues have given feedback about you, you re-portfolio will generate a report which will become visible to your TPD. Your TPD will be able to assess the feedback given about you, and will contact you to give support or feedback about the content if that is necessary before making the report visible to you and your ES.

If there have not been sufficient responses to allow your TPD to make the report visible you will see a message at the top of the report page giving you details of the number of responses received by the E-Portfolio. You may need to remind your colleagues to complete their feedback forms so that you can have the benefit of seeing the MDF report.

You and your ES can access your published report  by clicking on the ‘Multisource Feedback’ button in the FD Reports section in the right hand side column of the Dashboard. You will need to discuss this report with your ES in a tutorial.

If you need to add to your original list of colleagues for feedback, you will need to contact Healthcare Learning helpline (email: epdp@healthcare-learning.com   Tel: 020  7400 8989) and request that the MSF Invitation page is unlocked so that you may add additional names.

If you are requested by the IRCP panel to carry out an additional MSF, this will be possible in months six and eight of your DFT year.