WF-13 — Practicum and Work-Based Learning Placement

This is the highest-weighted single Track A KPI in the entire OBEF framework. KPI 3.2 is worth 8 percentage points at both institutional and programme level, and it is submitted by MBRU rather than computed by the Ministry. It turns entirely on whether a placement is registered with the right attributes, not on whether it happened.

1. Purpose

To ensure that every IoL learner undertakes a formally approved work-based learning experience that is part of the programme's study plan, that the experience is supervised and evaluated by a named workplace supervisor, and that the participation, the supervisor relationship and the subsequent employment outcome are recorded at the time in a form that satisfies the Ministry's evidence requirements.

2. Scope

Scope statement. This process manages work-based learning for IoL programmes from the approval of a placement site and supervisor, through learner allocation and completion, to the recording of participation, supervisor evaluation and post-placement employment outcome.

Applies to. PGDipHPE and MScHPE learners undertaking a practicum, teaching placement, work-based project or equivalent supervised professional experience forming part of the approved study plan. Placement sites across Dubai Health entities and external partner organisations.

Does not apply to. Informal observerships, unsupervised self-directed activity in the learner's own role that carries no programme approval and no named supervisor, or CPD attendance. These do not meet the OBEF definition of a work placement and must not be recorded as one.

Applicable requirements. OBEF guide v11.5 KPI 3.2 (p.33), KPI 2.3 (p.26), KPI 3.1 (p.32), KPI 3.3 (pp.34 to 36); CAA programme requirements; MBRU placement and learner safety policy; data protection for learner and supervisor personal data.

The definition that governs everything below. OBEF accepts "clinical training, practical training, apprenticeship, co-op programmes" and equivalent, carried out during the study period, provided the placement is formally approved by the institution and a formal part of the programme structure, curriculum or study plan. Two attributes are therefore mandatory at the point of approval: institutional approval, and presence in the study plan. A placement lacking either is not a placement for OBEF purposes, however genuine the learning.

3. Trigger, boundary and endpoint

4. SIPOC

5. Accountability

Process owner. IoL Director of Programmes, or the role able to change placement design, negotiate site capacity with Dubai Health entities and resolve supervisor availability.

Escalation.

6. Process steps

1. Approve the placement site. Confirm a current site agreement or MoU exists (WF-24), that the site can supervise to the required standard, and that learner safety and data protection obligations are met. Expired agreement is a hard stop, not a warning. [CAPTURE] site identity, normalised to the controlled organisation list. Serves 3.1 and 3.3.

2. Nominate and approve a named workplace supervisor. One named individual per learner per episode, with role, organisation and a working email address. [CAPTURE] supervisor name, position, organisation, email. Serves 2.3 and 2.4. A placement without a named supervisor is not approvable. This single rule is what makes KPI 2.3 collectable at all, and KPI 2.3 is currently unreported for MBRU.

3. Confirm study-plan linkage and credit value. Verify the placement appears in the approved study plan for the programme and record its credit and contact hours. [CAPTURE] Program Code, study-plan reference, credit hours, planned contact hours. Serves 3.2 and 3.3. Decision point. If the placement is not in the approved study plan, it cannot be counted for OBEF. Route to WF-01 for a curriculum modification rather than recording it anyway.

4. Allocate the learner and open the placement episode record. One record per learner per episode. [CAPTURE] learner ID, Program Code, academic period, placement type from the HEDB Internship Type vocabulary, planned start and end dates. Serves 3.2.

5. Induct learner and supervisor. Confirm learning outcomes, the supervisor's evaluation responsibility, and the date the evaluation will be requested. Setting the evaluation expectation at induction rather than at the end is the difference between a 90% and a 30% return rate.

6. Deliver and supervise. Record actual contact hours delivered by the workplace supervisor, not planned hours. [CAPTURE] actual supervised contact hours. Serves 3.3, where the threshold is at least 20% of contact hours delivered by the partner and never fewer than 10 hours.

7. Confirm completion. Programme Director or delegate confirms the learner met the placement requirements. [CAPTURE] completion flag and date. Serves 3.2 numerator. Exception route. Incomplete or withdrawn placements are recorded as such with a reason. They remain in the denominator. Deleting them is a data-integrity failure, not a tidy-up.

8. Capture the supervisor evaluation. Issue the Employer Work-placement Survey within 10 working days of completion; two reminders at 7-day intervals. [CAPTURE] per-question raw responses, issue date, collection date, respondent identity. Serves 2.3. Retain the raw per-question data. Appendix B permits the Ministry to demand exactly this for KPI 2.3.

9. Record participation in the placement register. Reconcile the episode record against Grad_Workplacement at graduation so the two never disagree. [CAPTURE] the reconciled participation flag. Serves 3.2 and cross-KPI assertion C3.

10. Record the employment outcome at 12 months. Through WF-25, establish whether the learner received a confirmed job offer from, or was hired by, an organisation where they trained. [CAPTURE] offer or hire flag, employer identity normalised to the same controlled organisation list used in step 1, offer date. Serves 3.1.

11. Claim the placement as co-delivered teaching where it qualifies. Where the placement is a credit-bearing component genuinely delivered inside and by the employing organisation, with named supervisors and scheduled contact hours, submit it to WF-03 for inclusion in the KPI 3.3 numerator. Serves 3.3.

7. OBEF data generated

Capture rule. Four things cannot be reconstructed after the fact and must be recorded while the placement is live: the named supervisor with a working email, the actual supervised contact hours, the raw supervisor evaluation with its dates, and the placement organisation in normalised form. Everything else in this table can be recovered from records; these four cannot.

Reproducibility test. A second analyst can reproduce KPI 3.2 from Students - Internship.xlsx joined to Students - Graduates.xlsx and filtered by Institute - Academic Programs.Internship indicator, with no tacit knowledge required. KPI 2.3 currently fails this test at MBRU, because no supervisor register exists; that is the capture defect this workflow is principally designed to close.

8. Max-score design

What this workflow must do to reach the target.

1. Register every placement episode. KPI 3.2 does not reward the placement happening; it rewards the record existing. An unregistered episode is a lost point.
2. Never approve a placement without a named supervisor and a working email. This is the only route to KPI 2.3, worth 2.5 points that MBRU currently scores nothing on.
3. Normalise organisation names against a controlled list of Dubai Health entities and their aliases at the point of capture. KPI 3.1 requires matching the employer at 12 months to the placement organisation, and free-text names make that match impossible.
4. Record actual, not planned, supervised contact hours, so WF-03 can test the KPI 3.3 threshold of at least 20% of contact hours and never fewer than 10 hours.
5. Reconcile the episode register to Grad_Workplacement before every submission (assertion C3).

[REDESIGN] actions.

Sequencing note. R1 is the single highest-value curriculum decision available anywhere in this pilot. R2 only has value if R1 is taken, and its value decays: the transition provision protects the number while the three-year rolling average catches up, so adopting R1 late means paying the dilution without the protection.

9. Indirect strategy where data cannot be collected

Category 3 and 4 apply here, and there is one genuine open question.

Category 4, activity exists but is invisible. This is the dominant case. IoL learners are practising health professionals undertaking supervised educational work. Much of it already meets the OBEF placement definition in substance and fails it on record: no study-plan linkage, no named supervisor, no registered episode. The response is capture through steps 1 to 4 above, not a tactic.

Category 3, activity does not exist. If curriculum governance declines R1 and the practicum remains optional, KPI 3.2's denominator question becomes live. The OBEF guide is internally inconsistent: the formula box restricts the denominator to graduates of programmes requiring a mandatory placement, while the definition block says all graduates in the cohort. The restricted reading is both more specific and more favourable. Choose it once, record the choice in the Mechanism of collecting the data field, and hold it constant across the three years of the rolling average. Changing basis mid-series produces a number that cannot be defended.

Category 2, population too small. KPI 2.3's supervisor population for a single IoL programme will fall below the Appendix C thresholds. Group PGDipHPE and MScHPE placements, which share content area and employment fields, and document the grouping before the survey runs.

The open question, stated rather than assumed. KPI 3.1 counts graduates who "received a job offer or were hired by an organisation where they trained". Many IoL learners are already employed by the organisation hosting their placement. Whether continued employment, internal appointment or promotion at that organisation satisfies the KPI is not addressed anywhere in the guide.

Do not assume the favourable reading. Put the question to MoHESR in writing, record the answer, and apply it consistently. If the answer is that prior employment does not count, IoL should consider placing learners in organisations other than their own employer for at least part of the practicum, which is defensible on educational grounds independently of the KPI.

Boundary check. This workflow must never:

• record a placement that is not in the approved study plan, however substantial the learning;
• record an observership or unsupervised workplace activity as a placement;
• record planned contact hours as actual hours in order to clear the KPI 3.3 threshold;
• claim the "recently added mandatory placement" provision without an approved, dated curriculum change to evidence it;
• assume the favourable reading of the KPI 3.1 employment question in the absence of a Ministry answer.

10. Service standards

11. Records and evidence

Appendix B readiness. Today, IoL could most likely produce the placement episode records and the site agreements within 15 working days. It could not produce raw supervisor evaluation data with dates, or a named supervisor per episode, because neither is currently captured. That gap is the reason KPI 2.3 is unreported, and closing it is action R3.

12. Risks and controls

13. Performance measures

The first three measures are the ones that matter for this pilot. A placement programme can be educationally excellent and score zero, and these three measures are the difference.

14. Change control