Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) has been available for 18 months and approximately 30,000 diplomates are participating. As we come to the middle of the year, some diplomates are closing in on answering 52 scorable questions and reaching their annual progress requirement.

That raises the question: What happens now?

After participants meet their annual progress requirement, they may opt out of receiving the weekly email and let the questions expire for the rest of the year, or they can keep answering questions and get to their first performance evaluation sooner. Many diplomates continue to answer questions because they enjoy the process or so they don’t have to remember to start again the following year after a long hiatus.

All questions answered in a year will count toward performance evaluations. Diplomates’ initial performance evaluations will occur the January after they have answered 200 scorable questions. With the continuous nature of OLA, after participants reach their first performance evaluation, the ABR will continue to evaluate their OLA performance each year on the most recently answered 200 scorable questions. Participants will always have to answer at least 52 questions a year.

The ABR will release cumulative score data this year on the OLA dashboard showing diplomates how they are performing against their passing standard.