Summary
Objectives:
Benchmarking statements provide a mechanism for making academic standards explicit
within a subject area. They allow comparisons between courses to be based on learning
outcomes rather than by defining a curriculum. No such statement has been produced
for informatics. In the absence of any established benchmarking statements for informatics
a new biomedical informatics course at St. George’s has developed a first benchmarking
statement — which defines the skills knowledge and understanding a biomedical informatics
student should acquire by the time they completethe course.
Methods:
Review of national biomedical science and computing subject benchmarking statements
and academic educational objectives and national occupational competencies in informatics.
Results:
We have developed a twenty-item benchmarking statement and this is available on-line
at: http://www.gpinformatics.org/benchmark2006/. This benchmarking statement includes a definition and justification for all twenty
statements. We found international educational objectives and national informatics
competencies useful and these are mapped to each one. National subject benchmarks
for computing and biomedical science were less useful and have not been systematically
mapped.
Conclusions:
Benchmarking the skills, knowledge and understanding that a student should acquire
during their course of study may be more useful than setting a standard curriculum.
This benchmarking statement is a first step towards defining the learning outcomes
and competencies a student of this discipline should acquire. The international informatics
community should consider moving from a standard curriculum to an agreed subject benchmarking
statement for medical, health and biomedical informatics.
Keywords
Benchmarking - informatics - curriculum - educational measurements - learning
