How Online Volunteer Communities Can Help Certification Boards Further Our Mission

Description: As certification boards look at their relationships with their diplomates, it is informative to examine the perspectives and experiences of physicians who voluntarily engage with their boards.

The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Item Writing Task Force is an innovative online volunteer community of physicians drafting assessment content. To help understand why physicians volunteer and what they experience in the task force, ABIM researchers interviewed 44 current or former participants. They describe joining for a myriad of reasons, such as connecting with other physicians, contributing to the profession, furthering their own education, and/or learning about exam creation. Many find their expectations met or exceeded, as the task force links them with peers and shows them first-hand how the board creates exam items; however, this can vary. These interviews have led to further work with item writers and staff from ABIM’s Test Development department to re-imagine the program to better meet the needs of physician volunteers and staff alike.

Based on this research and design work, we will lead a group discussion of how certification boards can create online volunteer communities of physicians to help create assessment content and further the boards’ missions. We will share lessons learned from our experience, those of other boards, and those of staff from other organizations (such as the Wikimedia Foundation), all with the goal of helping all boards who want to create online diplomate volunteer communities or otherwise engage with their physicians.