Article
Plenar 3: Collaborative case creation - does it work? And why?
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Published: | April 13, 2010 |
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There has been great interest in using e-Learning in medical education, but getting e-learning materials used broadly has been difficult to achieve. Utilizing a collaborative process, we have developed virtual patients in three medical disciplines (pediatrics, internal medicine, family medicine) that have achieved a very broad level of use in the US and Canada. We believe that the collaborative development and maintenance model is the key to success of these projects. This model recognizes that incorporating technology in medical education is primarily an educational, not a technological, challenge.
The collaborative model incorporates six key components: 1) multi-institutional authoring to achieve comprehensive coverage of a nationally accepted curriculum, 2) a consistent pedagogical approach within and across disciplines, 3) instructors resources for integrating the program in the curriculum, 4) maintenance of the content with nationally representative editorial boards, 5) support for the academic needs of medical educators, and 6) a stable support infrastructure that is financially sustainable.
The broad acceptance of these virtual patients achieves the goals of sharing of content, elimination of redundant work, and improved medical education. We believe that the collaborative development and maintenance model can and should be advanced in other areas of e-Learning.