Traditionally, the role of medical school faculty was compared to a three-legged stool, with the legs as education, research, and practice. This comparison implies medical school faculties achieve balance in the three parts of their duty. Today, this comparison has changed to a tricycle with oversized front. Intense competition between the roles of clinical practice and research had pressed medical school faculty members. Affiliated hospitals are seeking profits, clinical professors are focused on clinical practice, and universities are pressing professors to produce research product such as “SCI” journals. This is reflected by the fact that the faculty evaluation system is focused on research activities, leading many professors to set a low priority on their role as educators [1,2,3]. This situation is no different in Korea [4,5].

A reliable system to evaluate faculty based on their educational activities is needed to improve recruitment and retention of high-quality educators [1,6] and achieve the unique mission of educating physicians [7,8]. While the evaluation of research activities has well designed and acceptable standards, evaluating educational performance is still unsatisfactory in spite of recent efforts to develop effective assessment tools in this area [4,5,9,10,11,12]. To encourage medical school faculty to maintain a balance between research activity and educational activity, a reasonable evaluation system for educational performance is necessary.

In this study, we developed a new system for evaluating educational activity as part of the promotion and tenure process, with the goal of increasing participation in educational activities and raising individual investment in faculty’s role in education.

The new evaluating system was developed and applied to all professors at the Seoul National University College of Medicine (SNUCM).

In this study, we present the development of a novel tool for evaluating educational activity. Our goal was to provide an instrument that would encourage promotions committees to consider recognize and reward medical educators based on educational activity.

EPs are now used in addition to or in combination with CVs in many institutions to evaluate educators [12]. EPs are very informative and medical schools which are using EP documentation in their promotion dossier are enormously increased [12].

In this study, despite our efforts to develop clear and detailed guidelines for scoring, some rated items were ambiguous. The diversity of educational activities available made it difficult to establish clear-cut and consistent scoring criteria. Furthermore, educational activities are constantly evolving, making it challenging to evaluate them based on fixed items. Evaluation items must be frequently re-evaluated and updated based on new developments in the field.

The scores of lecture, basic experiment practice and clinical training showed a particularly wide disparity and these might result from the inequity of chance for lecture, basic experiment practice and clinical training among affiliated departments. Therefore, the task force team decided to establish an upper limit of scores to reduce any possible bias in evaluating lecture and clinical training.

As shown in the results, the educational activities of faculties are still primarily lecture, basic experiment or clinical training oriented (67.7%). These might result from faculty members’ unfamiliarity with alternative educational activities such as small group teaching.

Recently, many medical schools favored small group activities in place of larger lectures and the importance of tailored guidance for students was amplified. This has increased the need for effective and committed clinician educators [8,13]. We hope that our new evaluation system will function as an inducement for educational activities.

One obstacle to implementation of our new evaluation system is faculty’s unfamiliarity with keeping EPs. Despite our straightforward web-based EP system, faculties still reported discomfort with keeping EPs. For a valid and reliable evaluation system, faculties must document their work meticulously. The quality of evaluation tool is fully dependent on the quality of each faculty’s EP.

Our study has several limitations. First, as mentioned above, in this early stage of the evaluation we relied upon quantitative data. After the system is more fully established, we hope to create a more qualitative approach. Second, the evaluation system was developed based on consensus workshop. A continuous review and modification of the system is required to ensure that items and scores are adequate for evaluation educational activities and progress. Third, the evaluation system is primarily designed for promotion and tenure process. Senior professors who are exempt from this evaluation system are not affected by this system and have no incentive to participate. This may explain the fact that score increase was particularly significant in assistant professors.

We hope that our study will trigger productive debate that will lead to a consensus on educator evaluation and EP standards. Medical educators deserve a professional environment in which their efforts are valued and rewarded.

Our evaluation system for educational activities significantly increased faculty’s participation in educational activities. Further research should focus on upgrading and expanding the evaluation system.