The environment of online business education has blossomed in the last decade in the United States, as well as in the rest of the world. Many different approaches have been used to provide students with a more convenient, still very high quality education that can help them to acquire the knowledge and to develop the necessary competencies to achieve success in their careers.

Competency-based education has emerged recently as an alternative, targeting a specific audience of learners, that have developed skills prior to getting a formal education in those areas. By being able to assess those competencies, competency-based programs can recognize the “learning-by-doing” that students have formerly been exposed to, therefore accelerating the completion of degrees and guaranteeing that students can bridge the gap between the knowledge acquired and the actions employers expect to have, when hiring the graduates.

Competency-based education, however, is not new to the United States or the educational system; it has been used for years in corporate training as well as trade schools. With that in mind, this review of literature will examine the history of competency education and the current trends in best practices.