BCBA questions - Board Certification in Business Valuation (BCBA) Updated: 2024

Should I take EDCI 5515 or EDCI 5959 credits?

EDCI 5515 credits should be taken if you want to use the National Board Certification toward your Master's degree in Curriculum & Instruction. EDCI 5959 credits are for continuing education only and will NOT be accepted on your Program of Study for the Master's degree in C&I. 

Will there be classes offered to help me proceed through the National Board Certification process?

Yes, a series of seminars and workshops are offered through the Wyoming National Board Certification Initiative each semester. Information about these seminars and workshops is posted and updated on the Wyoming NBC website. Graduate level Curriculum and Instruction credit is available for these seminars (courses listed as EDCI 5515). These courses are designed to support teachers as they grow as professionals and simultaneously proceed through the Board Certification process and the UW Master’s program.  

Where will the classes be offered?

The classes are offered around the state of Wyoming to allow participation across the state. Dates and locations for upcoming seminars and workshops can be found on the Wyoming NBC website. Participants enroll in the courses through UW Outreach Credit Programs (toll free phone number: 1-800-448-7801). Up to 9 total credit hours of the seminars can be taken by enrolled graduate students. Up to 9 total seminar/workshop credit hours may be applied as electives in the Curriculum and Instruction Master’s program.  

Who will teach these classes?

The seminars are taught by Barbara Maguire, a Nationally Board Certified teacher and expert in the NBC process.

How many times can I take the NBC class?

Graduate students/National Board Candidates can enroll in the seminars as many times as necessary/desired. For those seeking graduate degrees, up to 9 credits can be applied to the Curriculum and Instruction Master’s degree program as elective hours dependent upon the student’s committee approval.

What about tuition?

Students will pay regular graduate tuition for the seminar classes. View the current UW fee schedule. 

Will I need to complete a Thesis or Plan B paper to finish my C&I degree? No, the NBC Portfolios will be accepted in Lieu of a Plan B Paper for teachers pursuing NBC Certification and a UW Master’s degree simultaneously. This acceptance is dependent upon committee approval (not acceptance by the National Board). An agreement to utilize this procedure and maintain portfolio confidentiality has been reached between UW and the NBPTS (National Board for Professional Teaching Standards). The NBC portfolio must be submitted and defended (in a meeting with the student’s graduate committee) prior to initial submission to the NBPTS.  The committee’s portfolio copies will be destroyed after the defense.

Note: The Rubric for Assessment of the presentation  is provided below.

If I am already a National Board Certified teacher, can I apply my NBC work retroactively to a graduate degree?

No, the program is designed for those working on National Board Certification and a C&I Master’s degree simultaneously.

How do I apply for a UW Curriculum and Instruction Graduate Program?

 The graduate application and other information can be found here.

What if I have Additional Questions?

 If you have additional questions, please contact the UW Department of Curriculum and Instruction (curriculum@uwyo.edu; 307-766-6371).

Assessment Checklist for National Board Certification (NBC)

Portfolio & Presentation 

Committee members will evaluate the following areas and will determine if the student/NBC candidate accomplished each of these aims/activities at a level sufficient to warrant the substitution of the NBC portfolio and presentation for the Plan B requirement. S/U (Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory) will be assigned  for each area, and an overall evaluation of “S” must be achieved for portfolio to serve in lieu of the Plan B paper.  

______ Overall evaluation of the portfolio and presentation as suitable substitutes for Plan B

paper/project and defense

Presentation of NBC Portfolio to Master’s Committee:

______Student provides a brief overview of National Board Certification process and portfolio

______Student describes process of working on the portfolio (including connections to C&I courses

taken, time commitment, assessments and data analysis, and reflections)

______ Student presents at least one explicit connection between the portfolio documentation and

his/her C&I Master’s Degree coursework (e.g. assessment strategy learned in literacy specific

course was used to evaluate student work included in NBC portfolio), and explains ways processes informed each other

_____ Student describes challenges, pleasures, difficulties associated with the NBC process

_____Student summarizes learning derived from portfolio process and completion

 More information on National Board Certification:

Visit our Course Schedule page to view projected MA core and emphasis course offerings

The proposal by the major cardiovascular societies in the US to form a new board of cardiovascular medicine to manage initial and ongoing certification of cardiologists represents something of a revolution in the field of continuing medical education and assessment of competency. 

Five US cardiovascular societies — the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Heart Association (AHA), the Heart Failure Society of America (HFSA), the Heart Rhythm Society (HRS), and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) — have now joined forces to propose a new professional certification board for cardiovascular medicine, to be known as the American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine (ABCVM). 

The ABCVM would be independent of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), the current organization providing maintenance of certification for cardiologists as well as many other internal medicine subspecialties. The ABIM's maintenance of certification process has been widely criticized for many years and has been described as "needlessly burdensome and expensive." 

The ABCVM is hoping to offer a more appropriate and supportive approach, according to Jeffrey Kuvin, MD, a trustee of the ACC, who has been heading up the working group to develop this plan. 

Kuvin, who is chair of the cardiology at Northwell Health, Manhasset, New York, a l arge academic healthcare system, explained that maintenance of certification has been a Topic of discussion across the cardiovascular community for many years, and the ACC has a working group focused on the next steps for evaluation of competency, which he chairs.

"The Topic of evaluation of competence has been on the mind of the ACC for many years and hence a work group was developed to focus on this," Kuvin noted. "A lot of evolution of the concepts and next steps have been drawn out of this working group. And now other cardiovascular societies have joined to show unification across the house of cardiology and that this is indeed the way that the cardiovascular profession should move." 

"Time to Separate from Internal Medicine"

The general concept behind the new cardiology board is to separate cardiology from the ABIM. 

"This is rooted from the concept that cardiology has evolved so much over the last few decades into such a large multidimensional specialty that it really does demarcate itself from internal medicine, and as such, it deserves a separate board governed by cardiologists with collaboration across the entirely of cardiology," Kuvin said. 

Cardiology has had significant growth and expansion of technology, tools, medications, and the approach to patients in many specialities and subspecialties, he added. "We have defined training programs in many different areas within cardiology; we have our own guidelines, our own competency statements, and in many cases, cardiology exists as its own department outside of medicine in many institutions. It's just time to separate cardiology from the umbrella of internal medicine." 

The new cardiology board would be separate from, and not report to, the ABIM; rather, it would report directly to the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), the only recognized medical certification body in the US. 

What Are the Proposed Changes

Under the present system, managed by the ABIM, clinicians must undergo two stages of certification to be a cardiologist. First, they have to pass the initial certification test in general cardiology, and then exams in one of four subspecialties if they plan to enter one of these, including interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, advanced heart failure or adult congenital heart disease. 

Next, clinicians enter the maintenance of certification phase, which can take three different forms: 1) taking another recertification test every 10 years; 2) the collaborative maintenance pathway — a collaboration between ACC and ABIM, which includes evaluation, learning and a certified test each year; or 3) longitudinal knowledge and assessment — in which the program interacts with the clinician on an ongoing basis, sending secured questions regularly. 

All three of these pathways for maintenance of certification involve high stakes questions and a set bar for passing or failing. 

Under the proposed new cardiology board, an initial certification test would still be required after fellowship training, but the maintenance of certification process would be completely restructured, with the new approach taking the form of continuous learning and assessment of competency. 

"This is an iterative process, but we envision with a new American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine, we will pick up where the ABIM left off," Kuvin notes. "That includes an initial certifying examination for the five areas that already exist under the ABIM system but with the opportunities to expand that to further specialties as well."

He points out that there are several areas in cardiology that are currently not represented by these five areas that warrant some discussion, including multimodality imaging, vascular heart disease, and cardio-oncology. 

"At present, everybody has to pass the general cardiology test and then some may wish to further train and get certified in one of the other four other specific areas. But one Topic that has been discussed over many years is how do we maintain competency in the areas in which clinicians practice over their lifetime as a cardiologist," Kuvin commented. 

He said the proposed cardiology board would like to adhere to some basic principles that are fundamental to the practice of medicine. 

"We want to make sure that we are practicing medicine so that our patients derive the most benefit from seeing a cardiologist," he said. "We also want to make sure, however, that this is a supportive process, supporting cardiologists to learn what they know and more importantly what they don't know; to identify knowledge gaps in specific area; to help the cardiologist fill those knowledge gaps; to acknowledge those gaps have been filled; and then move on to another area of interest. This will be the focus of this new and improved model of continuous competency."

The proposed new board also says it wants to make sure this is appropriate to the area in which the clinician is practicing.

"To take a closed book certified test every 10 years on the world of cardiology as happens at the current time – or the assessments conducted in the other two pathways – is often meaningless to the cardiologist," Kuvin says. "All three current pathways involve high stakes questions that are often irrelevant to one’s clinical practice." 

Lifelong Learning

"The crux of the changes we are proposing will be away from the focus of passing a test towards a model of helping the individual with their competency, with continuous learning and evaluation of competency to help the clinician fill in their knowledge gaps," he explains.

He described the new approach as "lifelong learning," adding that, instead of it being "a punitive pass/fail environment with no feedback, which causes a lot of discontent among clinicians," it will be a supportive process, where a clinician will be helped in filling their knowledge gaps. 

"I think this would be a welcome change not just for cardiology but across medical specialties," Kuvin said. 

He also pointed out the ABMS itself is considering a continuous competency approach, and the proposed new cardiology board aims to work with the ABMS to make sure that their goals of continuous competency assessment are matched. 

"The world has changed. The ability to access information has changed. It is no longer imperative for a clinician to have every piece of knowledge in their brain, but rather to know how to get knowledge and to incorporate that knowledge into clinical practice," Kuvin noted. "Competency should not involve knowledge alone as in a closed book exam. It is more about understanding the world that we live in, how to synthesize information, where we need to Excellerate knowledge and how to do that." 

Kuvin acknowledged that asking clinicians questions is a very helpful tool to identify their knowledge base and their knowledge gaps. "But we believe the clinician needs to be given resources – that could be a conference, an article, a simulation - to fill that knowledge gap. Then we could ask clinicians some different questions and if they get those right then we have provided a service." 

Tactile skills for cardiologists needing to perform procedures – such as interventionalists or electrophysiologists may be incorporated by simulation in a technology-based scenario.

On how often these assessments would take place, Kuvin said that hadn't been decided for sure. 

"We certainly do not think an assessment every 10 years is appropriate. We envision, instead of an episodic model, it will be rather a lifelong journey of education and competency. This will involve frequent contact and making sure knowledge gaps are being filled. There are criteria being set out by the ABMS that there should be a certain number of touch points with individuals on an annual as well as a 5-year basis to make sure cardiologists are staying within specific guardrails. The exact nature of these is yet to be determined," he said. 

Kuvin added that it was not known yet what sort of hours would be required but added that "this will not be a significant time burden."

What is the Timeframe?

The application to the ABMS for a separate cardiology board is still ongoing and has not yet received formal acceptance. Representatives from the five US cardiovascular societies are in the initial stages of formulating a transition board. 

"The submission to the ABMS will take time for them to review. This could take up to a year or so," Kuvin estimates. 

This is the first time the ABMS has entertained the concept of a new board in many years, he noted. "It will be a paradigm shift for the whole country. I think that cardiology is really at the forefront and in a position where we can actually do this. If cardiovascular medicine is granted a new board, I think this will help change the approach of how physicians are assessed in terms of continuous competency not just in cardiology but across all specialties of medicine."

He added: "We are confident that we can work within the construct of the ABMS guidelines that have been revised to be much more holistic in the approach of continuous competence across the board. This includes thinking beyond rote medical knowledge and thinking about the clinician as a whole and their abilities to communicate, act professionally, work within a complex medical system, utilize medical resources effectively. These all have to be part of continuous competence."

How Much Will This Cost?

Noting that the ABIM has received criticism over the costs of the certification process, Kuvin said they intend to make this "as lean a machine as possible with the focus on reducing the financial [burden] as well as the time burden for cardiologists. It is very important that this is not cumbersome, that it is woven into clinical practice, and that it is not costly." 

But he pointed out that building a new board will have significant costs. 

"We have to think about developing initial board certification examinations as well as changing the paradigm on continuous certification," he said. "This will take some up-front costs, and our society partners have decided that they are willing to provide some start-up funds for this. We anticipate the initial certification will remain somewhat similar in price, but the cost of ongoing continuous competency assessment will be significantly reduced compared to today's models."

Kuvin said the collaboration of the five participating US cardiovascular societies was unprecedented. But he noted that while the transition board is beginning with representatives of these individual societies, it will ultimately be independent from these societies and have its own board of directors. 

He suggested that other societies representing other parts of cardiology are also interested. "Cardiology has recognized how important this is," he said. "Everybody is excited about this."

The Defense Department packed a lot of detail into its proposed rule for the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program, released just before the holiday break. But CMMC experts also see a lot of lingering questions that DoD will have to address in 2024 before finalizing the rule.

The Pentagon announced its plans for a revised “CMMC 2.0” more than two years ago, after it delayed an initial CMMC rule issued in late 2020. The goal of the program is to ensure contractors are following cybersecurity requirements for protecting sensitive but unclassified information.

Despite all the questions and controversy at times with CMMC, Bob Metzger, the head of the Washington office of law firm Rogers Joseph O’Donnell, doesn’t see any big surprises in the rulemaking released in late December.

“Clearly, DoD has put a huge amount of thought into it,” Metzger said during a Jan. 2 meeting of the Cyber Accreditation Body. “And undoubtedly they’ve read some or perhaps much of the commentary that has been swirling around the expected 2.0 rules for a couple of years. And yet, when you look at what they’ve actually done, there are no significant architectural changes. This is pretty much what we were told we were going to get.”

The Pentagon stuck with changes to split up the CMMC requirements into three different levels. DoD plans to fully institute those requirements across all solicitations by October 2026.

DoD projects that the program will affect about 220,000 companies across the defense industrial base. But the department projects that the majority of those companies — just short of 145,000 — will only be required to self-attest to meeting cybersecurity standards.

DoD still estimates that about 76,000 companies in the defense industrial base handle more sensitive information that will require them to get a third-party assessment of their security practices.

Metzger says the rule shows DoD is not backing off contractor cybersecurity initiative.

“The rule communicates that DOD is serious about the cybersecurity of the defense industrial base,” he said. “They could have made life easier for small businesses, they might have truncated the requirements or extended the rollout period, or increased the opt outs or given contracting officers more latitude over a greater period of time so that it wouldn’t be as demanding for so many, but in the main, they did not. They kept the bar fairly high for almost everyone.”

The proposed rule carves out an important role for DoD’s prime contractors. It requires those companies to both comply with CMMC themselves and flow down the requirements to subcontractors throughout their supply chains.

“That reads to me that DoD is going to hold that prime contractor responsible for their entire supply chain,” Eric Crusius, a procurement attorney and partner at Holland and Knight, said during the Cyber AB meeting. “And you could bet that that will waterfall all the way down the supply chain from the prime contractor and may accelerate the requirements that some of these large primes have for getting a CMMC certification along the way”

But experts also say some important clarifications will be needed as DoD finalizes the rule. DoD is collecting comments on the proposed rule through February 26.

For instance, which version of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-171 will contractors have to meet? The proposed rule says revision 2. But NIST is finalizing Revision 3 of the 800-171 publication with some important updates.

The rule raises questions about what version of the standards contractors will have to meet, and how DoD will ensure its contractor cybersecurity requirements keep up with evolving cyber threats.

Jacob Horne, the chief cybersecurity evangelist for Summit Seven, said DoD should clean up some of those needed clarifications. But Horne also pointed out that instituting major cybersecurity improvements to the defense industrial base will be a gradual process.

“Overall, I think that the best that we’re ever going to be able to accomplish is going to be incremental changes over time,” Horne said during the Cyber AB meeting. “I think that some sort of wholesale sea change, revolutionary, continuous monitoring, elite, high speed security revolution is just not going to happen via policy or politics or whatever. And if in this rule, specifying Rev Two is the first increment in that long series of increments, then I think that it is a reasonable compromise in a lot of ways.”

Another key question is how DoD will apply the CMMC requirements to companies that provide IT services to businesses in the defense industrial base, referred to as managed service providers or MSPs. Many defense contractors, especially small businesses, don’t manage every aspect of their IT networks. Instead, they outsource IT and cybersecurity to MSPs.

Metzger, who noted he sits on the board of an MSP firm, says the rulemaking needs to clarify how those external service providers should meet the CMMC requirements.

“We also need to be thinking about that often used word: reciprocity,” Metzger said. “If an MSP is deemed to sufficiently meet -171 for one client, we’d sure like it to apply for all clients that are using the same services, so that we don’t have each client of an MSP fighting its way over the hill to get essentially the same outcome. This proposed rule is better on MSPs. It avoids very, very bad outcomes that might have occurred. But it is not clear enough in my view.”

Crusius said CMMC Third-Party Assessment Organizations will also be strained to meet the demand of providing assessments for more than 70,000 companies in the coming years.

“There’s no way that the C3PAO community will be able to get through them fast enough for the amount of companies that need them,” he said. “So I think this only works by having an MSP community that is able to get certified and is able to be kind of categorized in a way where DoD can look at them and say, ‘OK, if this company is using this MSP, we know that 30, 80, however many of these boxes can be checked.’ We have to verify, but we don’t do like investigate each new system like it’s a brand new system, which would make these assessments a lot slower.”

Another critical question is when exactly the rule will be finalized. It typically takes an agency at least a year to adjudicate all the comments and finalize a complex rulemaking. But Horne and others pointed to a couple reasons why DoD may be able to finalize the rule by the end of calendar year 2024.

“Given the election, given the fact that DoD, against their desire, was forced to wait another three years, essentially, from the time they issued their 2020 rule, I would imagine they are exceptionally highly motivated to get this wrapped up before the end of this year,” Horne said. “That means, hey, maybe we’ll have another Christmas surprise at the end of this year.”

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The UAB Office of Community Standards and Student Accountability and the Title IX Office invite faculty, staff, and undergraduate and graduate students to earn a university hearing certification on Thursday, August 4 and Friday, August 5. After completing the university hearing certification, you will be eligible to serve as a judicial board member.  

Details of Training  

Participants will understand the role of the hearing board and build skills related to conducting a hearing, weighing evidence and assigning appropriate sanctions in accordance with university policy. The schedule for each training session is as follows.  

Day 1  

• Philosophy of student conduct  
• University of Alabama at Birmingham’s complaint and resolution process  
• Hearing Board members’ roles throughout the hearing process  
• And much more!  

Day 2  

Participants will practice their skills in a mock hearing by being provided with a mock-investigation report and a sample hearing script. The Grand River Solutions facilitator will provide guidance, direction, and feedback throughout the hearing.   

Interested participants may contact UAB Community Standards and Student Accountability at 205-996-1512 or accountability@uab.edu with any questions.   

Click here to register.  

Lucknow: The Supreme Court has directed the Uttar Pradesh government to provide an explanation for the ban on the sale, manufacture, distribution, and storage of halal-certified products in the state. The notice from the apex court follows a set of petitions by Halal India Private Limited and Jamiat Ulama-e-Maharashtra challenging the state government's order. The petitioners argue that the ban has immediate implications on trade, commerce, consumers, and religious sentiments, affecting not only Uttar Pradesh but also having Pan-India implications. They contend that such bans also expose Halal certifying agencies to criminal liability, and similar demands are emerging in other states like Bihar and Karnataka.

Appearing for one of the petitioners, senior advocate Siddarth Agarwal emphasized that the courts need to examine whether such a notification can be issued and whether entities accredited by the commerce ministry for such certification can be prosecuted solely on the grounds of issuing halal certificates. Agarwal highlighted the disparate treatment, noting that similar positions have not been taken for practices of other religions or denominations like kosher or satvik. The petitioners argue that the ban not only impacts public health and religious practices but also questions the legitimacy of certification bodies recognized by the commerce ministry.