Natalia Stathakarou

Beyond xMOOCs in healthcare education: study of the feasibility in integrating virtual patient systems and MOOC platforms

Background. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are an emerging trend in online learning. However, their technology is not yet completely adjusted to the needs of healthcare education. Integration of Virtual Patients within MOOCs to increase interactivity and foster clinical reasoning skills training, has been discussed in the past, but not verified by a practical implementation. Objective. To investigate the technical feasibility of integrating MOOCs with Virtual Patients for the purpose of enabling further research into the potential pedagogical benefits of this approach. Methods. We selected OpenEdx and Open Labyrinth as representative constituents of a MOOC platform and Virtual Patient system integration. Based upon our prior experience we selected the most fundamental technical requirement to address. Grounded in the available literature we identified an e-learning standard to guide the integration. We attempted to demonstrate the feasibility of the integration by designing a “proof-of-concept” prototype. The resulting pilot implementation was subject of verification by two test cases. Results. A Single Sign-On mechanism connecting Open Labyrinth with OpenEdx and based on the IMS LTI standard was successfully implemented and verified. Conclusion. We investigated the technical perspective of integrating Virtual Patients with MOOCs. By addressing this crucial technical requirement we set a base for future research on the educational benefits of using virtual patients in MOOCs. This provides new opportunities for integrating specialized software in healthcare education at massive scale.

Virtual patient simulations for health professional education

his is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: The objective of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual patient simulation as an educational intervention versus traditional learning, other types of e-Learning interventions and other forms of virtual patient simulation interventions for delivering pre-registration and post-registration healthcare professional education. We will primarily assess the impact of these interventions on learners’ knowledge, skills and attitudes. Our secondary objective is to assess the cost-effectiveness of these interventions.

KIUrologyX: Urology As You Like It—A Massive Open Online Course for Medical Students, Professionals, Patients, and Laypeople Alike

KIUrologyX is a massive open online course in clinical urology that allows a broad range of people access to important clinical knowledge. It is a course that can be made available to an unlimited number of students, professionals, patients, and their kin.

Using Competency-Based Digital Open Learning Activities to Facilitate and Promote Health Professions Education (OLAmeD): A Proposal.

Background Traditional learning in medical education has been transformed with the advent of information technology. We have recently seen global initiatives to produce online activities in an effort to scale up learning opportunities through learning management systems and massive open online courses for both undergraduate and continued professional education. Despite the positive impact of such efforts, factors such as cost, time, resources, and the specificity of educational contexts restrict the design and exchange of online medical educational activities. Objective The goal is to address the stated issues within the health professions education context while promoting learning by proposing the Online Learning Activities for Medical Education (OLAmeD) concept which builds on unified competency frameworks and generic technical standards for education. Methods We outline how frameworks used to describe a set of competencies for a specific topic in medical education across medical schools in the United States and Europe can be compared to identify commonalities that could result in a unified set of competencies representing both contexts adequately. Further, we examine how technical standards could be used to allow standardization, seamless sharing, and reusability of educational content. Results The entire process of developing and sharing OLAmeD is structured and presented in a set of steps using as example Urology as a part of clinical surgery specialization. Conclusions Beyond supporting the development, sharing, and repurposing of educational content, we expect OLAmeD to work as a tool that promotes learning and sets a base for a community of medical educational content developers across different educational contexts.

Evaluation of three educational use cases for using Virtual Patients in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): a Delphi study

Abstract Background: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) extended with Virtual Patients (VPs) may foster specific medical skills. In particular, three educational use cases have been proposed to enable interactivity and foster clinical reasoning skills training: collective evaluation of decision making in the context of uncertainty, collective repurposing of cases with division of discussion into subgroups, and computational models in short cases for flexible selection and adaptive learning with VPs. The aim of this study was to evaluate the educational strengths and weaknesses of the proposed use cases. Methods: We went through a two-round modified Delphi process. A panel of experts was formed and asked with open-ended questions to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each use case. The obtained responses were categorized thematically; four specific aspects of the use cases were isolated. In the second phase, the panel was asked to read the collected, categorized responses and prioritize the use cases focusing on each of the four identified aspects. Results: Six experts participated in the process. According to their opinion, decision making in uncertain context was the most feasible in implementation and in fostering clinical reasoning skills training; cultural repurposing was judged to leverage the MOOC potential the most; and computational models in short cases were considered the most interesting use case for the learners. Conclusions: The use cases were validated and prioritized; the Delphi approach brought insights into the use cases’ potential benefits, threats, and challenges.