The use of outcome and competency frameworks is a growing part of health professions education and regulation in many countries. To implement competency-based education and assessment, competency frameworks must be connected to curricula, learning resources, and assessment data.
The MedBiquitous Competency Framework, MEDBIQ CF.10.1-2012, is a technical standard for representing competency frameworks in XML. Organizations that publish competency frameworks can do so in this standard format, making it easier to integrate competency frameworks into educational technologies like curriculum management systems. The standard allows medical schools and other health professions schools to connect their curriculum, learning resources, and assessment data back to a common set of competencies, ultimately enabling competency-based views of the curriculum and of learner performance.
Once competencies are expressed in a common format, they can be used as the backbone of education and performance management systems and offer a number of benefits.
- Learners and educators can search for learning resources addressing a particular competency.
- Educators can determine where specific competencies are addressed in a curriculum.
- Boards and hospitals can track and manage competency data for the professional.
- Administrators can map one competency framework to another.
