title: Developing outcomes assessments for collaborative, cross-institutional benchmarking: progress of the Australian Medical Assessment Collaboration.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The Australian Medical Assessment Collaboration (AMAC) began in 2010. This article charts the development of the collaboration over its initial years.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  AMAC was instigated as a way of improving the quality of medical education through the recognition of the need for tools for comparison and evaluation of learning outcomes, acknowledgement of the need for high quality assessment, and to share expertise in these areas. In a climate of increasing regulation and accountability, this collaboration was formed as a means of increasing assessment practices by, with and for medical schools.
  
  
  METHODS
  This article provides an overview of the background issues stimulating the development of AMAC, discussion of the formation of the collaboration and reflection on the lessons learnt through these processes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In a relatively short space of time, AMAC has fostered substantial collaboration among schools; developed an Assessment Framework, items and an online assessment; and provided benchmarking reports to students and schools.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The intention here is to provide guidance for others (within the medical education community and those in other disciplines) with similar intentions and aims, by outlining the developmental pathway of the project and the systematic lessons that the collaboration team has learnt in establishing AMAC.
authors.affiliation: Monash University , Australia.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wilkinson
authors.forename: Benedict J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Canny
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pearce
authors.forename: Hamish
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Coates
mesh_terms: D001315:Australia; D019985:Benchmarking; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004501:Education, Medical; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care / Q000592:standards*; D016730:Program Development