mEducator:Multi-type Content Repurposing and

Sharing in Medical Education

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Panos BamidismEducator Project Director

Assist. Prof. Medical Education InformaticsMedical School ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKIGREECE

http://www.meducator.net

July 31st, 20092

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

What is mEducator?

A Best Practice Network co-funded by the – eContentplus 2008 programme of the European

Commission, Information Society and Media Directorate-General, Digital Content & Cognitive Systems

Start Date May 1st , 2009 Duration 3 years Contract Reference: ECP-2008-EDU-418006

July 31st, 20093

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Medical Education: facts & challenges

medical and biomedical information and knowledge is ever expanding

medical disciplines become increasingly overspecialized

medical education includes both theoretical instruction and clinical apprenticeship

thus, medical education is

based on a broad range of learning content, which, nowadays, in its most part, is also available and distributed digitally

July 31st, 20094

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator central idea

discover, retrieve, use, rate, re-use and re-purpose educational content irrespective of any Learning Management System use

providers and users of such content may be – expert instructors (academics / health professionals)– students / learners

July 31st, 20095

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator “content”

refers to educational material with a registered history of creation and evolution

Is linked with – specific educational goals and objectives– learning outcomes – educational contexts/settings

comes recommended with – certain teaching methods & strategies types

July 31st, 20096

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator “content” …

content can be anything,

as long as it is properly accompanied by a clear description of

– what objectives it meets

– what learning outcomes it envisages

– how is it supposed to be taught

– how is can be assessed…

July 31st, 20097

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Learning content in medical education

produced by a variety of sources:

– basic research outcome

– accepted scientific knowledge

– clinical practice

addresses a variety of learning/teaching approaches

– conventional teaching material

– content for active learning experiences: case/problem/role/inquiry/… based learning

July 31st, 20098

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Medical learning content types

conventional content– lecture notes, books, exam questions, practicals, scientific

papers, graphs, images, videos, … content types unique in medical education

– teaching files, virtual patients, evidence based medicine forms, objective standard clinical examinations, anatomical atlases, …

alternative educational content types– reflecting active learning techniques and new technologies:

didactic problems, wikis, forums, web traces, … user generated content

– reflecting user interaction with learning content

July 31st, 20099

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Content re-purposing & re-use

considering the state of the art nature of medical educational content, it is imperative that such content is

– repurposed

– enriched

– re-used

so as to be embedded effectively in medical curricula, continuing medical education and public awareness

July 31st, 200910

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

What is content re-purposing ?

changing a learning object initially created and used for a specific educational purpose in a specific educational context,

in order to fit a different purpose in the same or different educational context

July 31st, 200911

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Content re-purposing types

(1) in terms of the actual content– add or mutate content of a learning object– integrate or fuse content from different objects– re-organize existing content

(2) re-purpose to different languages– crucial as medical knowledge has to be conveyed to the public as

well

(3) re-purpose to different cultures– mainly account for different legislation, medical regulations, lab

test norms, reference values, units, requirements for different groups

July 31st, 200912

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Content re-purposing types…

(4) re-purpose for different pedagogical approaches: – from conventional lecturing to active experiential learning (and

vice-versa)

(5) re-purpose for different educational levels:– to match different prerequisites for undergraduate, postgraduate,

residents, specialists, life-long professional training, public awareness

(6) re-purpose for different disciplines and professions– ranging from medicine, and nursing to lab technicians, basic life

sciences, to bioengineering and informatics, and even to healthcare administrators etc.

July 31st, 200913

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Content re-purposing types…

(7)re-purpose to different content types: – change a learning object from one type to another

(8) re-purpose for different technology:– digital format, digital size and quality, metadata

description scheme, computer platform, etc

(9) re-purpose content created for a different from education scope (e.g. policy/strategy support…)

July 31st, 200914

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

But why bother with studying re-purposing ?

automatically re-purpose learning objects

keep track of a learning object evolution– credentials to contributing individuals

– IPR issues

– update a learning object (or a fragment of it)

a different view in learning objects search: via associations created during repurposing

July 31st, 200915

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator scope

critically evaluate existing standards and reference models so as to enable specialized, state-of-the-art medical educational content to be discovered, retrieved, shared and re-used across European higher academic institutions.

Medical educational content within:– traditional instructional teaching… – …to active learning and experiential teaching/studying

Content types– from text to exam sheets– medical algorithms– teaching files– computer programs (simulators or games)– interactive objects

virtual patients electronically traced anatomies

Covers a variety of topics.

July 31st, 200916

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator User-generated Content

Web2.0 based PBL/CBL MEDTING Clinical Cases Interactions with Virtual

Patients Cases in the form of e-

traces Interactions with serious

medical games …

Personal Blogs

Class Discussion Forums

Class Wikis

Back

Healthcare Consumers and Clinicians Collaborate – Social Bookmarking

Back

Back

eTrace – Graphics annotation based lessons

Back

Triage Trainer

Medical data in a training scenario

Developed by TrueSim/VEGA group in collaboration with the SGI

Uses Virtual Patient concept

– Sophisticated and dynamic model required for detailed simulation of casualties

NanoMission

Developed by PlayGen, another SGI partner

Introduces nanomedical concepts in an interactive and engaging way

Requires data in formats that enable interactive and realistic interactions between user and biological system

Back

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co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator objectives

identify and collect a critical mass of different types of health educational material

examine if existing standards can address all types of health educational material, and make respective recommendations for standards extensions

examine if existing standards are adequate to support the packaging and seamless delivery of all these types of educational material

examine possible extensions of existing ontological schemata, which describe the semantics of Learning Objects

communicate and interact with standardization bodies to ensure adoption of recommendations/extensions into standards.

July 31st, 200924

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator Learning Contexts

Educational Setting

Target User Type/Category

Learning Context / Curriculum

Level Comments

Medical Schools

Medical educators

Train the Trainers programs

Beginner, intermediate, advanced

Level refers to IT tools literacy; focus is placed on how to best create, repurpose, resolve IPR and easily describe content metadata

Medical Schools

Undergraduate medical students

MD degree Beginner, intermediate, advanced

Level refers to topic coverage; focus is shifted towards better achievement of learning outcomes by using all this shared content

Medical Schools

Postgraduate medical students

MSc degree intermediate, advanced

Level refers to topic coverage; focus is shifted towards better achievement of learning outcomes by using all this shared content

University Hospitals, Training Hospitals

Resident doctors, Medical Professionals

Continuous Medical Education (CME); Hospital Training Schemas

intermediate, advanced

Level refers to IT tools literacy; educational issues should address the need to find practical, highly specialised, and well re-purposed (localised) healthcare practice examples (protocols, guidelines)

July 31st, 200925

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator will test 2 different approaches for sharing

1. loosely coupled LCMSs

– via mashup technologies

2. federated architecture– semantic web

services

partner institute

1

partner institute 4

partner institute

3

partner institute

2

partner institute 5

federated architecture

Project Plan

July 31st, 200927

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Ultimate goal…

provide mechanisms for content publishing, discovery, and retrieval

analyze policies and mechanisms for content evaluation, rating, renewal and repurposing

elaborate on issues of intellectual property rights of educational material, based on current peer property license practices

test the impact of true interoperability, repurposing, enrichment, and embedding of a variety of highly attractive and up-to-date learning resources in each of the partners’ curricula

provide recommendations on how to implement interoperable educational content discovery and retrieval networks

July 31st, 200928

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

mEducator Partners

1 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki GRCoordinator, Technology provider, Content provider, User/Evaluation, Dissemination

2 University of Cyprus CY Technology Provider, Content provider, User/Evaluation, Dissemination

3 Democritus University of Thrace GR Content provider, Technology provider, User/Evaluation, Dissemination

4 SITUSI Limited IR Content provider, Technology provider, Dissemination

5 Technical Univ. of Cluj-Napoca RO Technology provider, Pedagogical expert

6 Université Nice Sophia Antipolis FR Content provider, User

7 Medical University Plovdiv BG Pedagogical expert, Content provider, User

8 Università degli studi di Catania IT Pedagogical expert, Content provider, User/Evaluation

9 University of Helsinki FI Pedagogical expert, Evaluation

10

St George's Hospital Medical SchoolUK Standardisation Body

Technology and Content Provider

11

Succubus InteractiveFR

Content and Technology Provider

12

The Open UniversityUK

Technology Provider

13

Coventry University UK Content provider, Technology provider

14

European Cervical Cancer Association FR User/Evaluation

July 31st, 200929

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

How can you benefit?How can you benefit?

RegisterRegister and join the and join the mEducatormEducator community communityhttp://www.meducator.nethttp://www.meducator.net

July 31st, 200930

co-funded by the European Commission eContentplus programme

Contacts

Panos Bamidis mEducator Project Director

Medical School ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI, Greece

bamidis med.auth.gr

Maria Nikolaidou mEducator Project Manager

Medical School ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI, Greece

mnikol med.auth.gr

Eleni Kaldoudi mEducator Steering Committee

Medical School DEMOCRITUS UNIVERSITY OF THRACE, Greece

kaldoudi med.duth.gr

Costas Pattichis mEducator Steering Committee

Dept. of Computer Science UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS, Cyprus

pattichi cs.ucy.ac.cy

http://www.meducator.net