Rachel Ellaway

Managing and supporting medical education with a virtual learning environment: the Edinburgh Electronic Medical Curriculum.

Virtual learning environments (VLEs) can be a compelling and powerful way to support and manage contemporary medical education. A VLE purposively aligned to a course can integrate and normalize procedures and provide a central access point and reference mechanism for all of a courses component communities. The Edinburgh Electronic Medical Curriculum (EEMeC), developed in-house to support the Edinburgh undergraduate course, has proved to be a great success with students, teaching and administrative staff. It exists in a blended relationship with the course, which uses both face-to-face and online delivery modes. This paper maps out the process of the EEMeC systems development and describes a number of factors that have contributed to its success.

Cross-referencing the Scottish Doctor and Tomorrow's Doctors learning outcome frameworks

Learning outcomes, organised into systems or frameworks which describe and define the output of an educational programme, are being created and used in healthcare education with increasing frequency (Harden , 2002). Medical schools may be required to conform to more than one such outcome framework. For example, both the UK General Medical Council (GMC) and the Scottish Deans’ Medical Curriculum Group (SDMCG) have created and published a systematic learning outcome framework for medical graduates. Although both of these publications are concerned with undergraduate medical education, they differ in their aims, and structure. In order to use, evaluate and validate them, a cross-referencing system which relates each learning outcome statement, term or groups of terms is required. u2003This paper describes the cross-referencing exercise undertaken by the SDMCG, the philosophy behind it, the practical steps taken, the findings, the lessons learnt and reflections upon how this work may be taken forward. It will be of interest to all those who are involved in curriculum development using outcomes, and especially those who use the GMCs Tomorrows Doctors or the SDMCGs Scottish Doctor frameworks and those who are interested in education informatics in general.

Weaving the ‘e's together

This paper reviews the ways that the many threads and systems involved in computer-mediated and -supported healthcare education can be woven together by using educational interoperability standards and specifications. By taking a non-technical perspective the author considers the ways that these technologies impact on teaching and learning and how the educational landscape is changing in healthcare education as a whole.

In a Glass Darkly: Identity, Agency and the Role of the Learning Technologist in Shaping the Learning Environment

Learning technologies are becoming a common, and in many cases essential, component of the contemporary learning environment. As such, those who design, implement and control these encompassing technologies have emerged as major contributors to the success (or otherwise) of such systems. This article considers the power and responsibilities of learning technologists and the ways that they affect the teaching and learning environments around them. It does this by investigating, through semi-structured interview, the praxis of a learning technology group at the University of Edinburgh and relating this to professional issues for learning technologists in general. The article goes on to develop a typology of learning technology service provision based on the relationship between the learning technologist and the context in which their work is to be used. This is compared with interviews with practitioners, and a series of principles and recommendations is then developed. The thrust of these is that direct participation in the learning community is essential for learning technologists and that common codes of practice for learning technologists are required, both as a benchmark and as a framework by which professional practice can be measured and developed.

Challenging the Mortality of Computer Assisted Learning Materials in the Life Sciences: The RECAL Project.

Abstract The development and use of computer assisted learning (CAL) materials in the life sciences is well established and, in the UK at least, significant resources have been provided to enable this. Some years on from when the major investments took place teachers are facing the problem that the technologies used to develop and deliver the CAL programs have become obsolete in the face of rapid and constant changes in desktop computing. The content and pedagogical design of these programs were intrinsically tied to their delivery technologies such that when the technology becomes obsolescent the programs are either abandoned or redeveloped again and again at a significant cost in time and resources. The RECAL project, based at the University of Edinburgh, is developing methodologies that make use of new ways of abstracting and managing a CAL program’s assets, pedagogical design and run-time components to allow for much greater longevity and flexibility of such materials. This paper is an introduction to the RECAL approach, its use of common standards and specifications for describing materials and educational activities and how this can benefit developers and users of CAL materials.

Teaching web authoring: valuable skills, paperless courses

The Internet has become a core resource in higher education but has predominantly been used by institutions to provide resources for teaching, and by students to find information, which they then present in more or less traditional ways. In medical practice, the Internet has advanced more slowly but its importance is advancing rapidly. Already, it is the single most important source of information for patients when they learn of a new disease. Little has so far been done to encourage physicians or students to provide information in this way. The authors explored the feasibility of combining such education with a simplified method for assessment of group projects. These were produced as websites, which were then assessed online by tutors and examiners. Feedback was strongly positive. Drawbacks were few, and often shared with other types of publication. The resources needed to set up such a course are significant but most higher education institutions already have expertise and resources for Internet publishing. The course becomes almost paperless. Students become practically familiar with the benefits and pitfalls of providing medical information on the Internet, and capable of doing so themselves.