Abstract
IntroductionOnline education resources (OERs), like blogs and podcasts, increasingly augment or replace traditional medical education resources such as textbooks and lectures. Trainees’ ability to evaluate these resources is poor, and few quality assessment aids have been developed to assist them. This study aimed to derive a quality evaluation instrument for this purpose.MethodsWe used a three-phase methodology. In Phase 1, a previously derived list of 151 OER quality indicators was reduced to 13 items using data from published consensus-building studies (of medical educators, expert podcasters, and expert bloggers) and subsequent evaluation by our team. In Phase 2, these 13 items were converted to seven-point Likert scales used by trainee raters (n=40) to evaluate 39 OERs. The reliability and usability of these 13 rating items was determined using responses from trainee raters, and top items were used to create two OER quality evaluation instruments. In Phase 3, these instruments were compared to an external certification process (the ALiEM AIR certification) and the gestalt evaluation of the same 39 blog posts by 20 faculty educators.ResultsTwo quality-evaluation instruments were derived with fair inter-rater reliability: the METRIQ-8 Score (Inter class correlation coefficient [ICC]=0.30, p<0.001) and the METRIQ-5 Score (ICC=0.22, p<0.001). Both scores, when calculated using the derivation data, correlated with educator gestalt (Pearson’s r=0.35, p=0.03 and r=0.41, p<0.01, respectively) and were related to increased odds of receiving an ALiEM AIR certification (odds ratio=1.28, p=0.03; OR=1.5, p=0.004, respectively).ConclusionTwo novel scoring instruments with adequate psychometric properties were derived to assist trainees in evaluating OER quality and correlated favourably with gestalt ratings of online educational resources by faculty educators. Further testing is needed to ensure these instruments are accurate when applied by trainees.
Highlights
Online education resources (OERs), like blogs and podcasts, increasingly augment or replace traditional medical education resources such as textbooks and lectures
Two quality-evaluation instruments were derived with fair inter-rater reliability: the METRIQ-8 Score (Inter class correlation coefficient [intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC)]=0.30, p
With widespread access to and use of the Internet, there have increasingly been calls by the academic community for scientists to share their knowledge with the public and data with fellow researchers.[1,2]. Consistent with this open access movement, there has been a push to expand the repository of online educational resources (OERs)
Summary
Online education resources (OERs), like blogs and podcasts, increasingly augment or replace traditional medical education resources such as textbooks and lectures. With widespread access to and use of the Internet, there have increasingly been calls by the academic community for scientists to share their knowledge with the public and data with fellow researchers.[1,2] Consistent with this open access movement, there has been a push to expand the repository of online educational resources (OERs). In medical education, this movement has been dubbed Free Open Access Medical education (FOAM). Social media platforms, such as blogs and podcasts, have catalyzed the proliferation of OERs partly because of their ease of publishing.[3,4] Because these resources are readily accessible and literally at the fingertips of most clinicians and trainees, they are increasingly supplanting both medical journals and textbooks as a leading source of individualized, asynchronous learning.[5,6,7] healthcare professionals are forming virtual communities of practice to share knowledge and network with their peers and trainees, revolving around these social media platforms
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