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Background: In competency-based medical education emphasis has shifted towards outcomes, capabilities, and learner-centeredness. Together with a focus on sustained evidence of professional competence this calls for new methods of teaching and assessment. Recently, medical educators advocated the use of a holistic, programmatic approach towards assessment. Besides maximum facilitation of learning it should improve the validity and reliability of measurements and documentation of competence development. We explored how, in a competency-based curriculum, current theories on programmatic assessment interacted with educational practice., Methods: In a development study including evaluation, we investigated the implementation of a theory-based programme of assessment. Between April 2011 and May 2012 quantitative evaluation data were collected and used to guide group interviews that explored the experiences of students and clinical supervisors with the assessment programme. We coded the transcripts and emerging topics were organised into a list of lessons learned., Results: The programme mainly focuses on the integration of learning and assessment by motivating and supporting students to seek and accumulate feedback. The assessment instruments were aligned to cover predefined competencies to enable aggregation of information in a structured and meaningful way. Assessments that were designed as formative learning experiences were increasingly perceived as summative by students. Peer feedback was experienced as a valuable method for formative feedback. Social interaction and external guidance seemed to be of crucial importance to scaffold self-directed learning. Aggregating data from individual assessments into a holistic portfolio judgement required expertise and extensive training and supervision of judges., Conclusions: A programme of assessment with low-stakes assessments providing simultaneously formative feedback and input for summative decisions proved not easy to implement. Careful preparation and guidance of the implementation process was crucial. Assessment for learning requires meaningful feedback with each assessment. Special attention should be paid to the quality of feedback at individual assessment moments. Comprehensive attention for faculty development and training for students is essential for the successful implementation of an assessment programme.

In 1777 the "Economic Section" was founded as a branch of the "Dutch Society for Sciences" in Haarlem. It is the oldest organization in the area of economy in the Netherlands. The aim of the society was to stop the economic recession in the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and to stimulate economic growth by spreading practical knowledge concerning industry and agriculture (including veterinary medicine). The Economic Section tried to achieve this by awarding prizes for the best essays on various problems in society. In this article special attention is paid to those essays with solutions concerning veterinary medicine and animal husbandry sent in during the second half of the 18th and the beginnings of the 19th century, in order to give an impression of the biggest problems at that time. Among various other veterinary subjects, essays dealt with scab in sheep, cattle plague, milk fever and glanders. Because of the insufficient scientific knowledge concerning the causes of infections and internal diseases hardly any practical solutions were sent in. However, the fact that the attempt was made shows how badly improvements in agriculture, cattle-breeding and veterinary medicine were needed. A need which only after more than 50 years after the opening of the first veterinary school in France resulted in the founding of the State Veterinary School in Utrecht in 1821.