Ms Megan Hastie Dip.Tech. BEd, MEd, Division of Anaesthesiology & Intensive Care, The University of Queensland, Level G Clinical Sciences Building, Herston, Qld 4029, Australia. Phone: +61 7 3253 1847 Fax: +61 7 3253 7202 Megan.H@onaustralia.com.au
Dr T.E. Allan Palmer BMedSci, BM, BS, FRCAnaes, FANZCA, Division of Anaesthesiology & Intensive Care, The University of Queensland, Level G Clinical Sciences Building, Herston, Qld 4029, Australia. Phone: +61 7 3253 1847 Fax: +61 7 3253 7202 T.Palmer@mailbox.uq.edu.au Home page [HREF 1]
World Wide Web,Medical education, Evaluation, GasBone
This study examines the need to evaluate web-based educational resources for medical practitioners and reports the development of such a tool. This is the first phase of a research and development project to determine the efficacy or otherwise of the online education delivery system evaluation system being used by the 'GasBone' anaesthetic internet continuing medical education project [HREF 2]
The GasBone project [HREF 3] of the Division of Anaesthesiology & Intensive Care [HREF 4]of The University of Queensland [HREF 5] has pioneered web-based learning in Anaesthesia and Critical Care medicine. Initial experiences with this medium were presented at Ausweb 95 [HREF 6], and subsequently our site has now grown to become recognised as one of the leading sources for online medical education within our specialty.
As part of the GasBone project [HREF 3] we have established a process whereby an educational presentation is recorded and reformatted to render it suitable for Internet delivery. The presentation format utilises a combination of conventional WWW media including 'jpg' and 'gif' images, combined with audio, video and still components delivered using VDOLive technology [HREF 7] ( see fig - 1 ). In addition we are experimenting with live broadcasting of the presentations using CuSeeme [HREF 8]
Figure 1: Online CME in progress involving
static slide combined with embedded video and audio components
As our project evolved out of the technical development phase, delivery of quality educational content became our primary goal. We considered two potential sources of feedback from our users - a confidential questionnaire and a public discussion area. The discussion area was created using public domain bulletin board software ( Perl scripts from Matts Script Archive [HREF 9]. An online evaluation instrument was required to provide an avenue of confidential feedback from our users to our content authors and allow for evaluation of each resource from a number of perspectives.
A questionnaire was developed:
Figure 2: Online confidential evaluation
questionnaire [
HREF 10]:
The user is presented with a series of drop down list boxes with phrases with which he can identify. This approach helps to obtain comparable answers between different users and so allow us to aggregate their opinions about any individual teaching resource. We provide users around the world with resources and they provide instant feedback on various aspects of the presentations, including educational content and relevance, and also technical aspects such as audio and visual clarity. When the user clicks the submit button the values from the form are mailed to the authors of this poster for evaluation.
The second phase of the project involves the collation and analysis of the data. This results in the refinement of online educational resources so that the learning needs of users are met through a continuing process of negotiation. Conversely, the least successful resources will be identified and culled thereby ensuring only the most useful online resources are retained. This provides a means of quality control which will complement web-based education via the Internet.
We are developing a ranking system whereby the user may provide an overall opinion of the resource presented. This rank will be stored on our server and used in combination with user information also collected via the questionnaire to present resource lists to the user which others with similar requirements have found useful.We will thus evolve an ongoing process of user based peer review.
The use of computers and the Internet in education is now a worldwide phenomenon. Medical education, and in particular the specialty area of Anaesthesia, is leading the way in the development of online educational resources. We have developed an innovative online evaluation instrument which enables learners to choose relevant, up-to-date and peer reviewed online resources and also to contribute to the ongoing refinement of these resources. This instrument sets a standard for online evaluation of resources for both medical education and education in general.
Megan Hastie & Allan Palmer © 1997. The authors assigns to Southern Cross University and other educational and non-profit institutions a non-exclusive licence to use this document for personal use and in courses of instruction provided that the article is used in full and this copyright statement is reproduced. The authors also grants a non-exclusive licence to Southern Cross University to publish this document in full on the World Wide Web and on CD-ROM and in printed form with the conference papers, and for the document to be published on mirrors on the World Wide Web. Any other usage is prohibited without the express permission of the authors.
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