Launched on December 6, 2011, the International Qualifications Network (IQN) is a Web site that is administered by the Foreign Credentials Referral Office (FCRO).  The IQN provides a virtual space for employers, regulatory bodies, sector councils, academia, immigrant serving organizations, and governments to learn from, and to leverage the practices of others to advance their own foreign credential recognition initiatives.

While all the information posted to the site is public, registered members may contribute information about their own initiatives, and provide feedback on others' initiatives.

Strengths:

The IQN Web site was developed to address the need for a centralized tool to promote and support the sharing of information related to the assessment and recognition of international qualifications in Canada. To date, 400 individuals from 260 stakeholder organizations from across Canada have been engaged on the IQN and it currently has over 300 members and 154 initiatives, including representatives from many occupations including: engineers, health professionals, technicians and technologists, and accountants.

Information posted on the IQN helps to build the ever growing FCR body of knowledge and benefits stakeholders across all Canadian jurisdictions. It is also a useful tool for all stakeholder groups to monitor projects that were funded, read about lessons learned, discover best practices, forge new partnerships and save time and effort by leveraging existing practices.

To promote sharing across all jurisdictions, members who post information on the Web site may request to have parts of the information translated into either English or French free of charge.


Challenges:

To convince users to adopt the tool, become a member, contribute and maintain their information.

The attached cheat sheet includes information and tips on how to use the Web site.