Konstantin Brass¹
1 Institute for Communication and Assessment Research 

In order to face challenges in the continuously changing medical assessment culture, institutions have to cooperate more intensively. On this target, the Umbrella Consortium for Assessment Networks (UCAN) was formed 18 years ago and is meanwhile carried by the non- profit Institute for Communication and Assessment Research. UCAN is an academic association which consists of a total of 95 faculties, professional societies, medical associations and other institutions from eight different countries, which support each other through optimizing of the following resources: (1) network, (2) development, (3) standardisation, (4) quality assurance, (5) exchange and (6) research. 

Over the last 18 years, UCAN has successfully developed a comprehensive portfolio of 14 different assessment tools to cover the entire examination workflow. In collaboration with our partner institutions, UCAN has been developing standards, workflows and tools for the planning, preparation, implementation, evaluation, quality assurance and feedback of examinations. 

So far, over 16,100 colleagues added more than 930,000 items to a common platform for authoring, sharing and reviewing items and exams. Best practice examples for reliable exams, assessment contents and workflows are collected and implemented at the partner institutions. New formats for item and exam formats are continuously developed. To date, over 15 million students were successfully assessed in 54,000 exams. 

Especially with the upcoming conceptual, logistic and developmental challenges associated with the shift from knowledge to competency-based assessment, tie-ups are highly 

recommendable. 18 years of cooperation in a collaborative network has proven to be an efficient way to face challenges in medical assessment. 

Assessment institutions should work together in order to tackle common challenges. 18 years of successful cooperation at UCAN proves this approach to be both innovative and feasible.