COMPETENCY-BASED ASSESSMENT (CBA)

About

PGO is now using an online competency-based assessment system to assess your work experience. In addition to providing validated examples to demonstrate each of the competencies, you must have a minimum of four years of experience validated in the system. Validators, or referees, must be registered as per the instructions provided at our references page.

Who Can Use the CBA System?

All applicants for the full, limited or change of designation registration, and those who are unregistered and applying for temporary registration, must use the online Competency Based Assessment (CBA) system to record their progress in meeting the competency requirements for geoscience experience and have it validated and assessed. Please see the Geoscience Competency Assessment Guide for more information.

Note for GIT’s:

Those applying for the GIT designation should not use the CBA system at this time (nor should they submit a work experience record [WER] as the CBA system has replaced WER). Once the GIT designation has been granted, you are encouraged to open an account and become familiar with the CBA system and enter competencies as you complete them. This will make the change of designation process smoother when you reach the required 48 months of work experience.

The Competencies

There are four competency categories, that contain a total of 29 competencies, that applicants must demonstrate in order to achieve professional registration:

The competency requirements are defined as observable and measurable skills, knowledge, abilities, motivations or traits required for professional registration that are demonstrated through the actions and behaviour of the applicant. Please see the Indicators Report for more information.

Validation and Assessment

The applicant is required to select one example from their work history that best highlights an appropriate exposure level to a specific key competency. These examples will require validation from those who have direct, first-hand knowledge of the work conducted by the applicant. Validators (referees) should be a supervisor and/or colleague who has direct knowledge of the applicants work. Once all examples have been validated by the referees, the assessment stage will begin. Members of the Registration Committee will act as assessors and will review all of the competency examples and validator comments. Competencies are graded using a rating scale, and an average of 3 is needed to pass the assessment. Please see the Competency Rating Scale Summary to view the rating scale.

Timeline

For an application to be formally reviewed, the applicant must have submitted and completed the full application process, and all validators (referees) must have submitted their assessment. Once an application has been completed, it will take approximately 6-8 weeks to go through the review process and for the results to be sent out by email.

How to Access the CBA System

Resources and Guidelines