Session 1: E-education

Friday, 19 June, 2015 - 09:45 to 11:00
Conference room: 

Medical/Health Education Informatics: from birth to grow; an account of achievements

Abstract: 
Medical Education Informatics brings together researchers in the multi-disciplinary areas of Medical/Health Education, pedagogy, Open Education educational technology and technology enhanced learning, Medicine2.0 and the semantic web. The homonymous conference aims to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of the research activities of its actors, namely, academics, medical teachers, health professionals, clinicians, psychologists, web scientists, engineers, computer scientists and managers all involved in medical/health education "as it is" or enhanced by ICT innovations. The main concept started back in 2012, with the 1st International Conference on Medical Education Informatics (MEI2012, www.mei2012.org), inspired by developments and collaborations ignited during the mEducator (www.meducator.net) project. Key papers from MEI2012 appeared in a special issue in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org/themes/108). MEI as a domain started being shaped first in two International Workshops on "Multi-type Content Repurposing and Sharing in Medical Education" organised in Larnaca, CY (2009), and Plovdiv , BG (2010), as well as, many other clustering and dissemination events which have taken place since 2009, in the framework of the mEducator project. MEI2012 conference created the space for discussion and debate about the evolution of learning technologies and the web and its integration and role within modern medical education. This year, the 2nd International conference (MEI2015) is organised within the framework of the CAMEI Project (http://www.camei-project.eu/). The latter coordinates research activities and policies towards the development of renewed educational material and programs, as well as, new trends for acquiring new knowledge by the healthcare workforce in EU and USA in an effort to foster trans-national access to research infrastructures from both EU and USA partners and establish a network of best practices in Medical Education Informatics. However, this year, MEI2015 is supported by other funded projects, namely, ePBLnet (http://www.epblnet.eu/) [funded by the TEMPUS programme]; Millennium Hospital (http://www.mhel-project.eu/) [funded by ]; WHAAM (http://www.whaamproject.eu/) [funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commision; Key Activity 3 Multilateral Projects]; and STHENOS (http://www.sthenos.gr) [funded by the Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs, Culture and Sports (ref. number 2012ΣΕ24580284]. The not-for-profit organisation, Open Knowledge Foundation and mainly the Greek Chapter activities (http://okfn.gr/) have contributed much with further dissemination and development of semantic and open technologies in view of their application in health/medical education. Classically speaking the MEI domain borrows much content from the Educational Technology area and the computer science as well as medical/health education fields, not to mention the very close health/medical informatics domain. Contemporary activities, however, are fueled by the admitting the quite philosophical truth that "our abilities to measure what we do and how we think are poor". As a result, one of the recent activities showing great promise well within the MEI domain, is exploring various approaches in assessment and activity metrics and analysis of big educational data, that is learning analytics. In this paper, the main cornerstones of the past 5 year achievements are revisited in the light and promise of new endeavours and the envisaged prospects, in an effort to emphasise the need for the domains existence.

Free-range professional development

Abstract: 
All learning is open as learning can’t happen otherwise. The concept of free-range has been borrowed from farming where it has been recognised to create more ethical ways of being and better quality results. We could add to the mix the Do-It-Yourself, recycling and upcycling culture which are gaining not just popularity but also importance to raise awareness and responsibility for a sustainable present and future and transform us all into makers and innovators. Being resourceful, sharing and collaborating for own and collective good become increasingly more important and enable us not just to survive but also to thrive in challenging times. Learning and development is ongoing, it has to be, if we want to keep up and lead change. The rapid technological advancements and the desire of humans to collaborate, brought about changes to the way we live, learn and develop. The internet and social media have minimised geographical distances and maximised the potential for free-range learning and professional development that stretches across the globe. The Open Education Movement, open educational resources, open educational practices as well as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) all contribute to the opportunities and the possibilities. Professional development is increasingly a blend of formal, non-formal and informal offers and activities. Especially professionals can benefit from new ways of development within open and distributed communities. Having the freedom to pick ‘n’ mix opportunities and putting their own development menu together based on their needs and aspirations is empowering and will help them further enhance their practice, their career prospects as well as their connection with and belonging to professional communities. Keywords free-range learning, professional development, Open Education Movement

Global Usage of e-Learning Objects by healthcare stakeholders: input and impact

Abstract: 
Background Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs) are short, self-contained chunks of multimedia, web-based learning, on a focused topic. Their ability to engage healthcare users in interactive learning has earned increasing recognition in recent years. We have established a participatory methodology for RLO development. Stakeholder input is important in the success of RLOs as it ensures alignment with need, appropriate pedagogical design and ownership leading to use and reuse. RLOs were released as open content and ‘travelled’ with an online evaluation questionnaire. Few studies report on reuse of RLOs. Here we report on a study investigating global reuse and impact on RLOs on evidence-based practice, biosciences, clinical skills and pharmacology. Objective To determine the global reuse and impact of 71 RLOs openly released between May 2006 and July 2013. Method Data was collected from respondents via an online questionnaire hosted by Survey Monkey. Questions used Likert scales and asked about ease of use, helpfulness for learning and overall rating of the RLO. Qualitative fields asked ‘What do you most like?’ and ‘What did you not like?’. Survey files from 71 RLOs were downloaded and imported into a central database for analysis. Results Data were provided from 13,217 respondents who had undertaken one or more of the RLOs. 67.4% of respondents were students, 24.8% were staff, with other users including nurses and doctors. Different regions accessed different RLO types - 68% of North America respondents’ accessed evidence based practice RLOs. Pharmacology RLOs were more likely to be accessed by respondents from Asia. Regardless of region, 97.9% rated the RLO as ‘very helpful’ or ‘helpful’ when learning their subject. Conclusions Our study shows extensive global reuse of health RLOs demonstrating impact on learning for a wide range of stakeholders.

The role of information technologies in medical curriculum harmonisation

Abstract: 
In this contribution a new comprehensive approach describing medical curriculum harmonisation will be introduced. Behind the whole concept stays original methodological background, which is trending towards an outcome-based paradigm, together with an engineering and development of new curriculum management system intended for for curriculum designers, guarantors and faculty management. It provides a clear and transparent composition of compulsory and optional courses, and easy identification of potential duplicities and overlaps across a domain of medical and healthcare education. For students, it means an absolutely new way of how to understand what is really taught during a learning period, including all necessary meta information such as type and range of teaching, related MeSH keywords and list of essential terms presented in particular lecture, seminar or clinical practice. Moreover it brings a new communication channel between all involved stakeholders including students at institution level. The broad overview shows that various existing curriculum management systems focus on the outcome-based paradigm only from a certain perspective offering the agenda together with selected functionalities. However, they are unable to cater all the needs on curriculum harmonisation of the today’s higher education institutions. This is the reason why we decided to develop own web-based platform supporting guaranteed and more transparent building of curriculum including a control mechanisms in the form of deep inspection. Furthermore we will introduce a set of data mining and statistical methods in compliance with standardized and approved approaches, which are used for content analysis of a huge dataset extracted from a curriculum management system. These results may assist to identify potentially problematic areas and construct comprehensive overview of defined curriculum, because from the perspective of human cognition abilities, it is not possible to carefully read, verify and understand all learning units with all their linkages and co-dependencies.

The e-Examination Ecosystem in Healthcare Education: Information and Process Models

Abstract: 
Abstract. High stake assessments are an important component in all stages of healthcare education that validate learners’ clinical performance but may also inform and promote the learning process. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate the main aspects of the examination process that may become more effective and efficient with the application of informatics. A deductive approach based on four case studies was adopted and conceptual modelling was used to visualize the e-examination ecosystem. The components of the e-examinations ecosystem are presented in the form of information and process models. Finally variability in the ecosystem based on the type of e-examinations is highlighted.
Single session