After careful consideration and consultation, IMI has decided to evolve away from the mandatory feedback digest (FD) system, marking an important step forward in how feedback is gathered, shared, and used to strengthen trust in the field of mediation.
No Longer a Mandatory Component
From 1 September 2025, IMI will no longer require the compiling and maintaining of feedback digests as an essential part of its credentialing scheme.
This shift reflects IMI’s commitment to reducing administrative barriers to certification for experienced, highly skilled, and successfully assessed mediators. In many jurisdictions, the feedback digest system has been a barrier to certification due to the lack of an easy feedback collection mechanism and limited client awareness of its benefits.
Enabling Feedback Through Digital Tools
IMI is now working on encouraging and enabling mediators to gather feedback through:
- A new user interface on the IMI website, which will provide for a searchable “User Verified” badge and mediator profiles which clearly display the feedback digests;
- A modern, user-friendly feedback gathering tool that assists reviewers in compiling confidential feedback into digests and posting them to the mediator’s profile.
Together with trusted partners and visionary providers, IMI will be developing a digital framework that enables mediators (and institutions/mediation centres) to gather feedback with ease and confidentiality. This will, in turn, enable the feedback digest system to be embraced by both mediators and clients. The vision is that such a tool would be integrated into IMI certification across all credentialing levels, becoming an important added benefit of the credentialing scheme.
Benefits for Mediators and the System
The new online tool will allow mediators to gather data in real time, with ease and client confidentiality. Through greater insight into user satisfaction, important input will be gathered:
- for mediators, for their professional reflection and development, as well as
- for the mediation system as a whole.
In a field which vastly yearns for more empirical data, this is an important development and one which will be instrumental for further policy and promotional work.
Empowering User Choice and Transparency
In terms of the mediators’ listing on the IMI website, the novelty of the system will not only be that it will allow mediators to opt in to displaying their feedback digest, but it will also allow users to have a greater database of successfully assessed, experienced mediators to choose from, and to have the feedback digest as an additional element of consideration in their selection of mediators. The choice will be up to the users whether to give priority in selecting “User Verified” mediators or not.
While the feedback digest will no longer be mandatory to complete the certification process or to maintain the IMI credentials, clients will be able to search for and choose user-verified mediators with greater ease and confidence. Case experience and post-experience advanced knowledge and skills assessment will continue to remain a hallmark of the IMI credentialing scheme.
Looking Ahead
This evolution reflects IMI’s commitment to continuously improving our systems to meet the needs of both users and dispute resolution professionals. By removing unnecessary barriers and offering a modern feedback gathering framework, we are enabling more experienced mediators to complete certification, while also giving clients better insight and confidence when selecting a mediator.
Support IMI’s upgrade to its platform by donating and sharing feedback on the improvements you would like to see below:
