Background: Electronic portfolios (ePFs) which can be accessed from personal computers and mobile devices are gaining in importance in medical education.

Methods: We sent out by post written invitations to participate in an online survey to the medical education units of all 80 medical schools in Japan.

Results: Of the 70 schools from which replies were received, 16 use paper-based portfolios, 14 use ePFs, 8 use both, and 32 do not use either. The most commonly used ePF systems are Mahara, manaba folio, and WebClass, and they are used in particular for clinical training. An increased burden on the faculty is considered a demerit of ePFs. Compared with paper-based portfolios, ePFs facilitate timely feedback and the better storage and sharing of data, but, on the other hand, they are demanding in terms of infrastructure and technical administration. Current ePF solutions are not considered optimized for medical education.

Discussion: There is a need for the development of a common ePF environment for use in medical education.

This article illustrates how to use ICT for community formation in ten-year future plans. There is still room for improvement in using ICT, such as creating websites for JSME's annual conferences and seminars. Some other academic associations use social media effectively. For instance, YouTube videos are used to share conference information and Twitter is used for discussions during and after the sessions.　There are four ideas that comprise the future vision. The first involves organizing an online course for learning medical education. The second involves establishing a Special Interest Group based on some specific medical education themes such as simulation and e-learning. The third involves creating a community for lifelong medical education, which is an important topic. The last one involves establishing a member support system for using ICT.　In addition to these four ideas, there are other expectations that seem like wishful thinking. The first involves using new technologies such as VR and AR as conference organizing support tools, such as creating a "virtual" annual conference. The next expectation relates to "interpretation," which includes only translations into another language, such as Japanese to English, but also transcriptions in the same language using other phrases from a thesaurus and dictionary. Finally, establishing a methodology to manage the lifelong learning of healthcare professionals with digital badges is also expected.　These things will be helpful for the next generation medical education community.

When introducing the computer-based test (CBT) to the National Medical Licensing Examination, it is desirable to introduce question items with video and audio to take advantage of the characteristics of computers and to fill in the gaps between the audiovisual information presented in the exam and in clinical practice. 　To this end, it is necessary to collect appropriate video and audio materials and to establish the know-how and human resource development for creating items that make use of these materials.　The authors have been engaged in the development of video/audio-assisted CBT for 12 years. In the Kawakita Group of the Health Labour Sciences Research Grant projects, video/audio-assisted question items were given in the CBT trials for the National Medical Licensing Examination. Also, a manual and workshops for video/audio-assisted CBT have been prepared. Based on these experiences, this paper discusses the merits and challenges of CBT for the National Medical Licensing Exam.

In recent years, the Committee for the Improvement of the National Medical Licensing Examination has been discussing the possibility of replacing the National Medical Licensing Examination with CBT. The reasons for this include the diversification of the question format using multimedia and other methods and the need to respond to disasters and pandemics. Against this background, the authors are conducting research on CBT implementation for the National Medical Practitioners Examination. In FY2021, we conducted a CBT trial for the National Medical Licensing Examination using an open-source system. The trial was conducted at ten universities across the country, and most examinees were able to take the exam without any major problems. The future implementation of the CBT format for the national medical examinations will simplify the examination preparation system, develop a multiple examination system in preparation for contingencies, and evaluate examinees' abilities through more diverse question formats.