Theme: 5II Online learning 2 |
Online review and modification of undergraduate medical curricula in a web-based 'Learning Opportunities, Objectives and Outcome Platform' (LOOOP) | ||||||
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Knowledge, skills and attitudes (“objectives”) should be deliberate, deconstructed components of specific competencies. In addition, objectives should be aligned with learning opportunities and assessment and should be visable both for the own and for other faculties1,2,3,4. However, consideration of this consensus during curriculum development is a great challenge. Therefore, a web-based, dynamic “Learning Opportunities, Objectives and Outcome Platform” (LOOOP) was designed at Charité in Berlin to enable development of undergraduate medical curricula including curriculum mapping1,2,3. One elementary part of LOOOP is a sophisticated tool for review, development and versioning of objectives. This tool is available for the whole faculty from any computer with internet access.
Aim of this study was to evaluate the usage of this tool during the first three consecutive semesters after implementation.
Online review of objectives in LOOOP consists of three steps (see figure 1):
- step 1: review by curriculum committee and suggestion of changes
- step 2: edition by responsible persons for each teaching unit
- step 3: final decision by curriulum committee in case of disagreement
Figure 1: Review of objectives in LOOOP
Depth of each objective is defined by verbs and categorised according to Anderson et. al.5, LVV: responsible person for the respective teaching unit, SoSe: summer, WiSe: winter, D: dimension, K: cognitive dimension, W: knowlegde dimension, R: RIME role6, V: verb
Students comments to each objective are displayed and can therefore be considered during the review process (figure 2).
Figure 2: Considering anonymous students comments during review
LVV: responsible person for the respective teaching unit, SoSe: summer, WiSe: winter, D: dimension, K: cognitive dimension, W: knowlegde dimension, R: RIME role6, V: verb
All changes are tracked in a versioning system and can be viewed for all semesters since they have been put into LOOOP (see figure 3).
Usage data of all reviewed modules were anonymously extracted from LOOOP and were analysed concerning number of reviewed objectives and modified objectives to get an overview over the usage and therefore the acceptance of the online review system from winter 2012 to winter 2013.
Number of reviewed objectives increased during the first three semesters after implementation of the online-tool. Percentage of modified objectives increased more than threefold during the same period (see table 1).
winter 2012 |
summer 2013 |
winter 2013 |
|
number of reviewed objectives | 565 | 1100 | 1625 |
number of modified objectives | 60 | 274 | 556 |
percentage of modified objectives | 10.6% | 24.9% | 34.2% |
Acceptance of online-review and development of objectives in LOOOP increases constantly. This acceptance ensures aligment of competencies, objectives, learning opportunities, and assessment methods - both for primary and ongoing curriculum development.
Figure 3: Objective history displayed by the versioning system
LVV: responsible person for the respective teaching unit, SoSe: summer, WiSe: winter, D: dimension, K: cognitive dimension, W: knowlegde dimension, R: RIME role6, V: verb
Online review of learning objectives is a widely accepted instrument and may be an opportunity for many faculties to support curriculum development and to involve substantial parts of the faculty into this process.
1. Harden, Med. Teach. 2002, 151-155
2. Willett, Med. Educ. 2008, 786-793
3. Ellaway et al, Med. Teach. 2014, 208-215
4. Hays, Med. Teach.. 2014, 459-462
5. Anderson et al., Stud. Educ. Eval. 2005, 102-113
6. Pangaro, Acad. Med. 1999, 1203-1207