Uniform diversity: how to achieve standardization in live clinical assessments, while still retaining local autonomy

Background: Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs) are integral to assessment in medical education. Creating and delivering quality OSCE items can be time consuming and intellectually demanding. Sharing items among like-minded institutions alleviates some of this burden, while also addressing the desire for standardization of assessment at a national level. This often must be harmonized with certain content, process and procedural specifications imposed at a local level. The ACCLAiM project was founded by a number of Australian Medical Schools with these goals in mind. Those who have been involved in the project are now in a position to share their acquired expertise. Intended Outcomes: Participants will emerge with a framework for developing, implementing and evaluating collaborative OSCE items. They will also acquire experience in skills required by examiners and item creators. Structure: Presenters will facilitate discussion around various topics relating to inter-institutional sharing of live assessment items. They will also provide illustration from their own experiences as part of a collaborative demonstration project and evidence gleaned from the literature. Topics covered will include inter-examiner calibration, objective scoring, standard setting, curriculum alignment, and iterative item improvement. The session will be interactive, with practical exercises in inter-examiner calibration and consensus-driven item improvement. Who Should Attend: This workshop is intended for all medical educators who engage in live clinical assessments, and wish to share assessment items in order to maximise intellectual capital and continuously improve item performance. Familiarity with the OSCE paradigm is a pre-requisite for this workshop. Level of Workshop: Intermediate