Take-home messages from AMEE 2004 in Edinburgh Part 2.

This article presents information on AMEE 2004 meeting in Edinburg. Both in a symposium devoted to the topic and in free communication and poster sessions, AMEE contributors demonstrated a variety of examples of how outcomes have been devised and, more importantly, are being used at course and programme level, in individual institutions, in local or national collaborations and across nations. There has been a wave of interest in the use of portfolios for assessment purposes in the health professions in many countries over the past decade. There were 12 presentations and two posters on the topic at the Edinburgh meeting but even from this small sample some trends and take-home messages are evident. The portfolio is the property of the portfolio builder. Some of that property is private and some is shared and made public.