Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

ePBL med : application supporting classes in medical colleges conducted with the problem based learning method

ePBL med : application supporting classes in medical colleges conducted with the problem based... This paper reviews the available e-learning applications used in teaching medicine and presents the functionalities of the Web application developed to support classes conducted with the problem-based learning (PBL) method. The application is a form of e-learning platform that allows posting as well as archiving content stored during PBL sessions; it is made up of three modules: the administration module, the teacher module, and the student module. The presented Web application is flexible in operation; it allows designing the number of groups and PBL sessions. The user, apart from using the system during PBL sessions, can access it at any place and time to supplement and update the content. The materials collected during individual PBL sessions constitute sets of content unique for each group because the learning objectives are different for them. With this approach, students can study considerably larger batches of material than it would be possible during classes conducted with other methods. Keywords: e-learning; problem-based learning (PBL). DOI 10.1515/bams-2014-0022 Received December 12, 2014; accepted January 21, 2015; previously published online February 12, 2015 Introduction In recent years, with the ever-increasing access to a broad range of knowledge (atomisation of knowledge) and the resulting ever-increasing specialisation in *Corresponding author: Monika Piwowar, Department of Bioinformatics and Telemedicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Lazarza 16, 31-530 Krakow, Poland, E-mail: mpiwowar@cm-uj.krakow.pl Tomasz Lipiak: Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science, Jagiellonian University, prof. Stanislawa Lojasiewicza 11 str. 30-348, Krakow, Poland Michal Markiewicz: Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Jagiellonian University, prof. Stanislawa Lojasiewicza 6 str. 30-348 Krakow, Poland Michal Nowakowski: Department of Medical Didactics, Jagiellonian University Medical College, w. Lazarza 16 str. 31-530 Krakow, Poland specific areas, e-learning is becoming one of the more popular methods of teaching. New e-learning repositories, less or more specialised, are coming into existence more and more often. The development of this method of spreading knowledge is easier with better access to the Internet network, IT technologies used for the development of materials, and availability of computer hardware and mobile devices. Considering the fact that disks and servers are more and more efficient, and the prices of their use are dropping, limitations in the storage of volumes of electronic materials are no longer of major concern. The obvious advantage conducive to the popularisation of electronic content repositories is often the fact that materials are presented in a way highly attractive for the user with the use of multimedia techniques. Colour images, video clips, interviews, interactive diagrams, and many more similar methods presenting content makes electronic materials are more and more appreciated not only by young Internet users but also by those who are older. Many e-learning courses include "nesting content" following the "from general to detail" principle; it enables the user to quickly learn the scope of the presented information as well as to enter the highest level of details in the given issue without losing perspective of the whole. This is not possible with the classic "paper" methods used to describe issues, which is why often portals and courses may be currently found during which knowledge is addressed to persons of a certain need to pursue knowledge (e.g., patient-physician) within one course. With the added relatively easy and fast (almost in real-time) possibility of correcting, updating, and redistributing information included in e-learning courses, this method may be considered highly dynamic (i.e., effective). Another advantage of e-learning courses is the fact that the user may run through the programme in his/her own pace, repeating many times or skipping certain batches of material. Thus, no specific place or time is necessary to participate in such a course. All this makes the list of e-learning courses of positive value an impressive one [1]. The following are several examples of less and more specialised courses, mostly in biology and medicine. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is 70Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges distributing various courses available in the form of texts as well as audio and video files, all of which render high realism to the lecture. The additional possibility of stopping, listening, and re-viewing the given part offers the student the possibility of reflection and reinforcement of knowledge [2]. Several other resources in electronic form help carry out lectures and help students learn. The electronic form of the presented materials give possibilities for easy updating and distributing knowledge especially important in the context of ever-accelerating progress in biotechnological research [3­7]. Many courses are being developed based on e-learning platforms and teaching support systems (e.g., the commercial Blackboard [8] or the noncommercial Moodle [9]). These platforms give the possibility of posting didactic materials in electronic format, participating in Web fora, verifying knowledge with tests or creating Wiki pages about the given issue. The materials collected and presented in this way are clearly more attractive for a modern student when compared with traditional formats (i.e., paper handbooks). These examples show that the teaching based on Internet technologies is a rich set of information, which effectively contributes to the distribution of knowledge. Scientific reports confirm that learning with the use of electronic materials brings significant results. Internetbased learning is associated with large positive effects compared with no intervention. In contrast, the effects compared with non-Internet instructional methods are heterogeneous and generally small, suggesting effectiveness similar to traditional methods. Future research should directly compare different Internet-based interventions [10]. It may seem that e-learning is not a good method of teaching in medical sciences due to the fact that a medicine student as well as educated medical professionals need to be continuously enhancing their knowledge and are focused on acquiring knowledge in clinical practice through contact with the patient. However, discussing theoretical knowledge may also be helpful in medicine and in clinical cases based on electronic systems. The presentation of medical history of patients in the electronic form allows a medicine student to "meet" the patient suffering from a specific ailment and track the course of his/her illness without exposing the patient to incorrect procedures (typical for a learning person) [11]. The system allows posting expert comments (from experienced medical staff) and adding questions to which the student has to respond, thus making him/her "take part" in the decision-making process. All this is happening in the electronic environment with a range of multimedia materials, which gives more reality to the student-patient meeting. The problem-based learning (PBL) method, developed by Howard Barrows, has been more and more popular in recent years in medical sciences; it is a method of teaching that allows the enhancement of knowledge, remembering it, and understanding. With the PBL method ("learning from a problem"), students acquire knowledge from brainstorming in a group and solving problems [12, 13]. They face a real medical problem that they are trying to solve. They learn group work, coming out with hypotheses for the given case as well as developing the art of argumentation. Analysing many threads related to the analysed issue, they could expand medical knowledge that often goes considerably beyond the framework of the problem at hand [14]. The methods of traditional teaching with the PBL technique are currently supported to varied degrees with e-learning technologies in many university-level facilities in the world [15, 16]. The research shows that students better acquire knowledge when they can use materials in electronic formats [5, 17]. Most of them are not "tailor-made". To meet the need of using the possibilities and habits of students, the Web application described in the paper has been developed, the intended function of which is to support classes and archive materials stored by tutors and students during PBL sessions. PBL session data archiving enables easy access for students to the materials collected during a series of PBL classes as well as at a later time (e.g., during the examination session), thus offering the possibility of repeating what has already been discussed. e-PBL platform presented in the paper is the one proposition of application supporting classes in medical schools; it differs from other published PBL platforms in that it is conceived to present scenarios that covered the patient's medical history (according to the rules of teaching by the PBL technique). The case-based learning seems to be an effective way in medical education [18]. Materials and methods The development of the intended solution required designing and executing the implementation of the IT system based on the project. Tools and technologies were carefully selected to execute project assumptions with special attention paid to mutual communication between them. The design of the application was done based on Unified Modeling Language or UML [19], which allows a fast, precise, and clear form of modelling of design Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges71 assumptions through a series of functional charts. The project was executed based on the Waterfall methodology [20], which assumes breaking down work into smaller stages interconnected in the cause-and-effect arrangement (the final data of a given stage constitute input data for another stage). MySQL server was chosen to store data, an openaccess management system for relational databases. The server is available for all popular system platforms and various processor architectures [21]. The application dedicated to supporting teaching with the PBL method was developed in the PHP language due to the possibility of fast and effective development of Web server applications offered by this type of IT technologies (object-oriented, script-based programming language designed for the generation of Websites in real-time). PHP enables cooperation with types of data sources, such as database management systems, text files, XML documents, and Websites [22]. ­ ­ ­ Data archiving, Classification of users of the system into categories, and Access to stored and catalogued data by the users. The application has been broken down into three main parts: the administrator panel, the teacher panel, and the student panel. Administration module The first of three parts, called the "Super-User", is the module of the system that will be the only one available after the installation of the system. The administrator can create teacher accounts and communicate with them in this panel. The set of administrative functions is minimised. The e-learning platform operating according to the PBL method is developed mostly with the work of teachers and students (Figure 1). However, there must be a person in the system who can assign access to the system to a specific teacher/ tutor by adding his/her e-mail address and name to the database. Access password is generated and sent to the address given for the registration. The administrator can also display a list of teachers and their profiles and can delete a teacher and his/her group from the system (Figure 2). Results and discussion The designed and executed application meets a number of requirements, including ­ Multi-access capacity, ­ Creating and storing high volumes of data, Figure 1:Homepage of the e-PBL application. 72Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges Figure 2:Administrator panel functionality chart. Teacher module The next panel (for the teacher), available after creating the teacher account in the administrative panel, is a set of the most important functionalities of the system. The following list presents the most important functions of this panel: ­ Creating, modifying, and deleting student groups; ­ Giving access for students to a specific group; ­ Creating new PBL scenarios and their modification, archiving, and deletion; ­ Creating new PBL sessions within the scenario and their modification and deletion; ­ Access to the content of the sessions and the created student answers within the PBL scenario; ­ Access to the repositories sent by students within the PBL scenario ­ Full communication with students and other teachers; and ­ Creating categories in the Questions section and generating a text file from them. After the correct logging in, the teacher is redirected to the teacher panel. Its interface has the largest number of functions in the system. The person running the classes creates the first student group and assigns registered users to it. The teacher can create new PBL scenarios and edit them, delete, and create archive files from the content of the scenarios in the form of HTML pages. The tutor can add sessions to any scenario and modify them. He/ she can also review the answers entered by the students in the PBL sessions and review the repositories sent. The system allows full communication with other teachers and students from the given group. Moreover, the person running the classes can create new categories in the examination questions section. Reviewing one's own profile is also possible, where the teacher can change access password to the system or ask the system administrator to generating a new password and send it automatically to the e-mail address (Figure 3). Student module The last interface is intended for students. The access to this panel requires a prior registration of users in the system; when the e-mail address and the name of the user are entered, a password is generated and sent to the e-mail address of the user. This panel is working in continuous cooperation with the teacher panel and is to be used as an education tool for students. The data stored in it create the base of knowledge available for students, which is to be used during their learning process. The most important functions of this panel are as follows: ­ Access to the system after being added to the student group by the teacher; ­ Access to the PBL scenario and the sessions entered in it; ­ Adding new answers to PBL sessions; ­ Adding repositories to PBL sessions; ­ Access to the repositories and content of answers from other users who are members of the same group; ­ Creating examination questions within the "pool of questions" module; ­ Communication with the tutor and other members of the group; and ­ Access to one's own profile, changing password. Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges73 Figure 3:Functionality chart of the teacher panel. After logging in, the student is automatically redirected to the student panel. Here, the full functionality of the system is offered. Successful logging in means that the student has been assigned to a student group created by the teacher. The user has access to scenarios and PBL sessions. He/she can review them, add new answers, and enter his/her own repositories in them. The functionalities also call for the possibility of reviewing profiles of members of the group and communicating with them by e-mail. There is also a source of e-mail communication with the lecturer running the classes. The student in the system can also add questions to specific categories created by the teacher in the poll of questions. Each user registered in the system can access his/her own profile, change password, and edit data, and the created base of repositories is available for download at any time (Figure 4). Finally, the system is an expanded application ready to support classes managed with the PBL method, allowing the archiving of the collected material. Conclusions The Web-based electronic system dedicated to supporting teaching with the PBL technique has been developed and executed for the needs of classes in medical facilities. However, it is a proposal of the solution that may be used in various specialised fields, which is due to the possibility of flexible designing of PBL sessions and organisation of the related functionalities of the system. The developed application is to help organise classes and didactic materials by way of enabling the students to use the created materials at any place and time during and after completing any specific session. The additional possibility of adding multimedia materials, such as images and video clips, enhances the attractiveness of the content. Continuous access to e-learning resources collected with the developed application offers the capacity of easy updating of the content and is conducive for expanding knowledge by the students. 74Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges Figure 4:Student panel functionality chart. Flexibility and the open nature of the system help increase the active and autonomous attitude of the participants in the course. The personalisation of the content fosters the feeling of responsibility for the content among the participants of the course. The developed tool allows also the archiving of PBL scenarios and sessions along with reactions of the students participating in the class-based didactic process. The system ensures full communication of users and offers the possibility of making the created repositories available to others. Acknowledgments: Jagiellonian University Medical College (grant no. K/ZDS/004613). Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission. Research funding: None declared. Employment or leadership: None declared. Honorarium: None declared. Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Bio-Algorithms and Med-Systems de Gruyter

ePBL med : application supporting classes in medical colleges conducted with the problem based learning method

Download PDF
7 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/de-gruyter/epbl-med-application-supporting-classes-in-medical-colleges-conducted-plqkKsQ9i0

References (30)

Publisher
de Gruyter
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by the
ISSN
1895-9091
eISSN
1896-530X
DOI
10.1515/bams-2014-0022
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This paper reviews the available e-learning applications used in teaching medicine and presents the functionalities of the Web application developed to support classes conducted with the problem-based learning (PBL) method. The application is a form of e-learning platform that allows posting as well as archiving content stored during PBL sessions; it is made up of three modules: the administration module, the teacher module, and the student module. The presented Web application is flexible in operation; it allows designing the number of groups and PBL sessions. The user, apart from using the system during PBL sessions, can access it at any place and time to supplement and update the content. The materials collected during individual PBL sessions constitute sets of content unique for each group because the learning objectives are different for them. With this approach, students can study considerably larger batches of material than it would be possible during classes conducted with other methods. Keywords: e-learning; problem-based learning (PBL). DOI 10.1515/bams-2014-0022 Received December 12, 2014; accepted January 21, 2015; previously published online February 12, 2015 Introduction In recent years, with the ever-increasing access to a broad range of knowledge (atomisation of knowledge) and the resulting ever-increasing specialisation in *Corresponding author: Monika Piwowar, Department of Bioinformatics and Telemedicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Lazarza 16, 31-530 Krakow, Poland, E-mail: mpiwowar@cm-uj.krakow.pl Tomasz Lipiak: Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science, Jagiellonian University, prof. Stanislawa Lojasiewicza 11 str. 30-348, Krakow, Poland Michal Markiewicz: Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Jagiellonian University, prof. Stanislawa Lojasiewicza 6 str. 30-348 Krakow, Poland Michal Nowakowski: Department of Medical Didactics, Jagiellonian University Medical College, w. Lazarza 16 str. 31-530 Krakow, Poland specific areas, e-learning is becoming one of the more popular methods of teaching. New e-learning repositories, less or more specialised, are coming into existence more and more often. The development of this method of spreading knowledge is easier with better access to the Internet network, IT technologies used for the development of materials, and availability of computer hardware and mobile devices. Considering the fact that disks and servers are more and more efficient, and the prices of their use are dropping, limitations in the storage of volumes of electronic materials are no longer of major concern. The obvious advantage conducive to the popularisation of electronic content repositories is often the fact that materials are presented in a way highly attractive for the user with the use of multimedia techniques. Colour images, video clips, interviews, interactive diagrams, and many more similar methods presenting content makes electronic materials are more and more appreciated not only by young Internet users but also by those who are older. Many e-learning courses include "nesting content" following the "from general to detail" principle; it enables the user to quickly learn the scope of the presented information as well as to enter the highest level of details in the given issue without losing perspective of the whole. This is not possible with the classic "paper" methods used to describe issues, which is why often portals and courses may be currently found during which knowledge is addressed to persons of a certain need to pursue knowledge (e.g., patient-physician) within one course. With the added relatively easy and fast (almost in real-time) possibility of correcting, updating, and redistributing information included in e-learning courses, this method may be considered highly dynamic (i.e., effective). Another advantage of e-learning courses is the fact that the user may run through the programme in his/her own pace, repeating many times or skipping certain batches of material. Thus, no specific place or time is necessary to participate in such a course. All this makes the list of e-learning courses of positive value an impressive one [1]. The following are several examples of less and more specialised courses, mostly in biology and medicine. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is 70Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges distributing various courses available in the form of texts as well as audio and video files, all of which render high realism to the lecture. The additional possibility of stopping, listening, and re-viewing the given part offers the student the possibility of reflection and reinforcement of knowledge [2]. Several other resources in electronic form help carry out lectures and help students learn. The electronic form of the presented materials give possibilities for easy updating and distributing knowledge especially important in the context of ever-accelerating progress in biotechnological research [3­7]. Many courses are being developed based on e-learning platforms and teaching support systems (e.g., the commercial Blackboard [8] or the noncommercial Moodle [9]). These platforms give the possibility of posting didactic materials in electronic format, participating in Web fora, verifying knowledge with tests or creating Wiki pages about the given issue. The materials collected and presented in this way are clearly more attractive for a modern student when compared with traditional formats (i.e., paper handbooks). These examples show that the teaching based on Internet technologies is a rich set of information, which effectively contributes to the distribution of knowledge. Scientific reports confirm that learning with the use of electronic materials brings significant results. Internetbased learning is associated with large positive effects compared with no intervention. In contrast, the effects compared with non-Internet instructional methods are heterogeneous and generally small, suggesting effectiveness similar to traditional methods. Future research should directly compare different Internet-based interventions [10]. It may seem that e-learning is not a good method of teaching in medical sciences due to the fact that a medicine student as well as educated medical professionals need to be continuously enhancing their knowledge and are focused on acquiring knowledge in clinical practice through contact with the patient. However, discussing theoretical knowledge may also be helpful in medicine and in clinical cases based on electronic systems. The presentation of medical history of patients in the electronic form allows a medicine student to "meet" the patient suffering from a specific ailment and track the course of his/her illness without exposing the patient to incorrect procedures (typical for a learning person) [11]. The system allows posting expert comments (from experienced medical staff) and adding questions to which the student has to respond, thus making him/her "take part" in the decision-making process. All this is happening in the electronic environment with a range of multimedia materials, which gives more reality to the student-patient meeting. The problem-based learning (PBL) method, developed by Howard Barrows, has been more and more popular in recent years in medical sciences; it is a method of teaching that allows the enhancement of knowledge, remembering it, and understanding. With the PBL method ("learning from a problem"), students acquire knowledge from brainstorming in a group and solving problems [12, 13]. They face a real medical problem that they are trying to solve. They learn group work, coming out with hypotheses for the given case as well as developing the art of argumentation. Analysing many threads related to the analysed issue, they could expand medical knowledge that often goes considerably beyond the framework of the problem at hand [14]. The methods of traditional teaching with the PBL technique are currently supported to varied degrees with e-learning technologies in many university-level facilities in the world [15, 16]. The research shows that students better acquire knowledge when they can use materials in electronic formats [5, 17]. Most of them are not "tailor-made". To meet the need of using the possibilities and habits of students, the Web application described in the paper has been developed, the intended function of which is to support classes and archive materials stored by tutors and students during PBL sessions. PBL session data archiving enables easy access for students to the materials collected during a series of PBL classes as well as at a later time (e.g., during the examination session), thus offering the possibility of repeating what has already been discussed. e-PBL platform presented in the paper is the one proposition of application supporting classes in medical schools; it differs from other published PBL platforms in that it is conceived to present scenarios that covered the patient's medical history (according to the rules of teaching by the PBL technique). The case-based learning seems to be an effective way in medical education [18]. Materials and methods The development of the intended solution required designing and executing the implementation of the IT system based on the project. Tools and technologies were carefully selected to execute project assumptions with special attention paid to mutual communication between them. The design of the application was done based on Unified Modeling Language or UML [19], which allows a fast, precise, and clear form of modelling of design Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges71 assumptions through a series of functional charts. The project was executed based on the Waterfall methodology [20], which assumes breaking down work into smaller stages interconnected in the cause-and-effect arrangement (the final data of a given stage constitute input data for another stage). MySQL server was chosen to store data, an openaccess management system for relational databases. The server is available for all popular system platforms and various processor architectures [21]. The application dedicated to supporting teaching with the PBL method was developed in the PHP language due to the possibility of fast and effective development of Web server applications offered by this type of IT technologies (object-oriented, script-based programming language designed for the generation of Websites in real-time). PHP enables cooperation with types of data sources, such as database management systems, text files, XML documents, and Websites [22]. ­ ­ ­ Data archiving, Classification of users of the system into categories, and Access to stored and catalogued data by the users. The application has been broken down into three main parts: the administrator panel, the teacher panel, and the student panel. Administration module The first of three parts, called the "Super-User", is the module of the system that will be the only one available after the installation of the system. The administrator can create teacher accounts and communicate with them in this panel. The set of administrative functions is minimised. The e-learning platform operating according to the PBL method is developed mostly with the work of teachers and students (Figure 1). However, there must be a person in the system who can assign access to the system to a specific teacher/ tutor by adding his/her e-mail address and name to the database. Access password is generated and sent to the address given for the registration. The administrator can also display a list of teachers and their profiles and can delete a teacher and his/her group from the system (Figure 2). Results and discussion The designed and executed application meets a number of requirements, including ­ Multi-access capacity, ­ Creating and storing high volumes of data, Figure 1:Homepage of the e-PBL application. 72Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges Figure 2:Administrator panel functionality chart. Teacher module The next panel (for the teacher), available after creating the teacher account in the administrative panel, is a set of the most important functionalities of the system. The following list presents the most important functions of this panel: ­ Creating, modifying, and deleting student groups; ­ Giving access for students to a specific group; ­ Creating new PBL scenarios and their modification, archiving, and deletion; ­ Creating new PBL sessions within the scenario and their modification and deletion; ­ Access to the content of the sessions and the created student answers within the PBL scenario; ­ Access to the repositories sent by students within the PBL scenario ­ Full communication with students and other teachers; and ­ Creating categories in the Questions section and generating a text file from them. After the correct logging in, the teacher is redirected to the teacher panel. Its interface has the largest number of functions in the system. The person running the classes creates the first student group and assigns registered users to it. The teacher can create new PBL scenarios and edit them, delete, and create archive files from the content of the scenarios in the form of HTML pages. The tutor can add sessions to any scenario and modify them. He/ she can also review the answers entered by the students in the PBL sessions and review the repositories sent. The system allows full communication with other teachers and students from the given group. Moreover, the person running the classes can create new categories in the examination questions section. Reviewing one's own profile is also possible, where the teacher can change access password to the system or ask the system administrator to generating a new password and send it automatically to the e-mail address (Figure 3). Student module The last interface is intended for students. The access to this panel requires a prior registration of users in the system; when the e-mail address and the name of the user are entered, a password is generated and sent to the e-mail address of the user. This panel is working in continuous cooperation with the teacher panel and is to be used as an education tool for students. The data stored in it create the base of knowledge available for students, which is to be used during their learning process. The most important functions of this panel are as follows: ­ Access to the system after being added to the student group by the teacher; ­ Access to the PBL scenario and the sessions entered in it; ­ Adding new answers to PBL sessions; ­ Adding repositories to PBL sessions; ­ Access to the repositories and content of answers from other users who are members of the same group; ­ Creating examination questions within the "pool of questions" module; ­ Communication with the tutor and other members of the group; and ­ Access to one's own profile, changing password. Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges73 Figure 3:Functionality chart of the teacher panel. After logging in, the student is automatically redirected to the student panel. Here, the full functionality of the system is offered. Successful logging in means that the student has been assigned to a student group created by the teacher. The user has access to scenarios and PBL sessions. He/she can review them, add new answers, and enter his/her own repositories in them. The functionalities also call for the possibility of reviewing profiles of members of the group and communicating with them by e-mail. There is also a source of e-mail communication with the lecturer running the classes. The student in the system can also add questions to specific categories created by the teacher in the poll of questions. Each user registered in the system can access his/her own profile, change password, and edit data, and the created base of repositories is available for download at any time (Figure 4). Finally, the system is an expanded application ready to support classes managed with the PBL method, allowing the archiving of the collected material. Conclusions The Web-based electronic system dedicated to supporting teaching with the PBL technique has been developed and executed for the needs of classes in medical facilities. However, it is a proposal of the solution that may be used in various specialised fields, which is due to the possibility of flexible designing of PBL sessions and organisation of the related functionalities of the system. The developed application is to help organise classes and didactic materials by way of enabling the students to use the created materials at any place and time during and after completing any specific session. The additional possibility of adding multimedia materials, such as images and video clips, enhances the attractiveness of the content. Continuous access to e-learning resources collected with the developed application offers the capacity of easy updating of the content and is conducive for expanding knowledge by the students. 74Lipiak et al.: ePBLmed: application supporting classes in medical colleges Figure 4:Student panel functionality chart. Flexibility and the open nature of the system help increase the active and autonomous attitude of the participants in the course. The personalisation of the content fosters the feeling of responsibility for the content among the participants of the course. The developed tool allows also the archiving of PBL scenarios and sessions along with reactions of the students participating in the class-based didactic process. The system ensures full communication of users and offers the possibility of making the created repositories available to others. Acknowledgments: Jagiellonian University Medical College (grant no. K/ZDS/004613). Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission. Research funding: None declared. Employment or leadership: None declared. Honorarium: None declared. Competing interests: The funding organization(s) played no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the decision to submit the report for publication.

Journal

Bio-Algorithms and Med-Systems – de Gruyter

Published: Mar 31, 2015

There are no references for this article.