Interactive Online Course Research Articles

Aging and the Arts Online: Lessons Learned From Course Development and Implementation

With the recent move toward competency-based gerontology education, incorporating humanities and arts will be necessary for accreditation. This article describes the pedagogical approaches and lessons learned during 5 years of development and implementation of an asynchronous online course in Aging and the Arts. Fifty graduate and undergraduate students participated in the course over five semesters. Discipline diversity increased subsequent to designation as a fine arts general education course. Students expressed appreciation for multimedia resources, an initial fear of creating a wiki, and online redundancy was reduced through increased community engagement that also augmented application in real-world settings. The visual nature of arts and aging lends itself to a compelling and interactive online course experience that can be adapted to synchronous, hybrid, and face-to-face formats. Opportunities for community engaged learning will increase as art programs for older adults become more prevalent.

IMI Python: Upgraded CS Circles web‐based Python course

ABSTRACTThe rapid growth of student demand for flexible education and learning alternatives has caused a significant increase in web‐based programming course offerings. In order to ensure easy and enjoyable ways of acquiring knowledge, many web‐based solutions have customized the design and content to student needs. This paper introduces a project of the Institute for Mathematics and Informatics (IMI) called IMI Python, an interactive online course. It is based on the open‐source Computer Science Circles (CS Circles) project. IMI Python aims to assist the target audience, primarily students, learn a spectrum of Python knowledge. The benefits of this enhanced system are multiple, both for students and their teachers. The course content is structured and divided by levels: basic, medium, and advanced. Flexible navigation through the different levels of difficulty and lesson units allows students to easily review any forgotten material and adopt new knowledge. Teachers have the ability to follow the progress of individual students or all students in a level, and communicate with them about their work. Teachers and students can communicate within the system to discuss individual exercises through a simple user interface. The system is enhanced with the possibility of testing students’ knowledge through quizzes. Quizzes are visible at assigned time intervals and are worth a certain number of points. By tracking students’ results, teachers can determine whether the site has enough quality material and what can contribute to its improvement. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 24:464–480, 2016; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21724

Integration Policies. Case Study on Roma People and Immigrants

The paper presents results from piloting an interactive online course designed to support integration of immigrants, Roma and ethnic women, developed in the LLP project ALMA-DC financed by the EC. Project also planned to initiate an intercultural dialogue to trigger awareness of the importance of cultural/linguistic diversity and the need to help socially incorporate the migrant and/or ethnic women so that they attend adult learning, develop skills and find work. In Romania the course addressed Roma women. The pilot testing was achieved in January 2013. The testers were 25 Roma women and 2 experts. The self-assessment tool contained 50 questions.

The Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College / New York - Presbyterian Hospital: Risk Stratification and Personalized Early Intervention.

In July 2013, Weill Cornell Medical College founded the first Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic (APC) in the United States, providing direct clinical care to family members of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) as part of the Weill Cornell Memory Disorders Program. At the APC, patients seeking to lower their AD risk undergo a comprehensive assessment, receive a personalized plan based on rapidly evolving scientific evidence, and are followed over time using validated as well as emerging clinical and research technologies. The APC approach applies the principles of pharmacogenomics, nutrigenomics and clinical precision medicine, to tailor individualized therapies for patients. Longitudinal measures currently assessed in the clinic include anthropometrics, cognition, blood biomarkers (i.e., lipid, inflammatory, metabolic, nutritional) and genetics, as well as validated, self-reported measures that enable patients to track several aspects of health-related quality of life. Patients are educated on the fundamental concepts of AD prevention via an interactive online course hosted on Alzheimer's Universe (www.AlzU.org), which also contains several activities including validated computer-based cognitive testing. The primary goal of the APC is to employ preventative measures that lower modifiable AD risk, possibly leading to a delay in onset of future symptoms. Our secondary goal is to establish a cohort of at-risk individuals who will be primed to participate in future AD prevention trials as disease-modifying agents emerge for testing at earlier stages of the AD process. The clinical services are intended to lower concern for future disease by giving patients a greater sense of control over their brain health.

Course development for web-based nursing education programs

Developing and launching online programs requires nurse educators to reframe content and rethink traditional teaching methodologies. Creating a framework for course design and standardization of templates can result in online learning that is student centered while allowing the institution to scale up enrollment with quality education at the core. This article explores the considerations needed for effective, interactive online course delivery in nursing education. Working in conjunction with other university technology stakeholders, nurse educators can select the learning management system with the features that will work best for the program, develop the course structure and organization through adherence to template rules for both syllabi and course modules, and develop appropriate learning activities to assure student exposure to content identified in the course objectives. With these structure pieces in place process becomes the second focus for nurse educators in online programs. Process activities for active engagement are discussed.

What Are the Effects of Teaching Evidence-Based Health Care (EBHC)? Overview of Systematic Reviews

BackgroundAn evidence-based approach to health care is recognized internationally as a key competency for healthcare practitioners. This overview systematically evaluated and organized evidence from systematic reviews on teaching evidence-based health care (EBHC).Methods/FindingsWe searched for systematic reviews evaluating interventions for teaching EBHC to health professionals compared to no intervention or different strategies. Outcomes covered EBHC knowledge, skills, attitudes, practices and health outcomes. Comprehensive searches were conducted in April 2013. Two reviewers independently selected eligible reviews, extracted data and evaluated methodological quality. We included 16 systematic reviews, published between 1993 and 2013. There was considerable overlap across reviews. We found that 171 source studies included in the reviews related to 81 separate studies, of which 37 are in more than one review. Studies used various methodologies to evaluate educational interventions of varying content, format and duration in undergraduates, interns, residents and practicing health professionals. The evidence in the reviews showed that multifaceted, clinically integrated interventions, with assessment, led to improvements in knowledge, skills and attitudes. Interventions improved critical appraisal skills and integration of results into decisions, and improved knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour amongst practicing health professionals. Considering single interventions, EBHC knowledge and attitude were similar for lecture-based versus online teaching. Journal clubs appeared to increase clinical epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge and reading behavior, but not appraisal skills. EBHC courses improved appraisal skills and knowledge. Amongst practicing health professionals, interactive online courses with guided critical appraisal showed significant increase in knowledge and appraisal skills. A short workshop using problem-based approaches, compared to no intervention, increased knowledge but not appraisal skills.ConclusionsEBHC teaching and learning strategies should focus on implementing multifaceted, clinically integrated approaches with assessment. Future rigorous research should evaluate minimum components for multifaceted interventions, assessment of medium to long-term outcomes, and implementation of these interventions.

The ADMIT series — Issues in Inhalation Therapy. 7) Ways to improve pharmacological management of COPD: the importance of inhaler choice and inhalation technique

Since inhalation therapy will probably remain the preferred route of treatment for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), it is important to provide helpful information that may assist physicians and nurses in selecting the appropriate device(s) for individual patients as well as prescribing the correct medication. In line with the GOLD guidelines, the Aerosol Drug Management Improvement Team (ADMIT) propose a three-part "therapy adjustment strategy", which provides health care professionals with a way to monitor and check the delivery of inhaled medication. The strategy is a summation of the key principles behind the evidence-based management of stable COPD and exacerbations. It offers physicians a rapid and user-friendly overview of the requirements of COPD management starting with making the diagnosis and continuing with optimisation of therapy in follow-up appointments. It includes everything from check lists for disease assessment and recommendations for reducing risk factors to selecting the proper inhalers and continuous checking of compliance and correct inhaler technique. These practical COPD therapy adjustment algorithms have been used as part of an interactive online course developed by the ADMIT group (www.admit-online.info). The COPD "flash" video available at this web site offers suggestions on how to organise a complete doctor-patient consultation.

Marketing to and Developing Faculty Members to Create High Quality, Highly Interactive Online Courses

In this paper, the author shares a detailed process for soliciting and securing exemplar faculty members, who are ready to redesign and offer their course in a high quality online environment. The goal is to help faculty create highly engaging online learning opportunities as good as or better than their current face to face classes. Interested faculty members submitted a competitive proposal, and were selected to interact in a highly dynamic three day short course. The course introduced and applied learning theories as a mechanism to help faculty develop their materials, so that learners could attend, process, retain and use meaningful conceptually-based material. The outcome of the program was targeted, high quality online courses; word of mouth support and requests for short courses from our law and dental schools.

Training the Public Health Workforce from Albany to Zambia: Technology Lessons Learned along the Way

This article describes lessons learned by the University at Albany Center for Public Health Preparedness (UA-CPHP) in using three technologies to deliver preparedness training for public health professionals in New York State. These three technologies are: 1. Audience response system (ARS, or the "clicker" system)--Purchased to improve engagement of all participants in heterogeneous training audiences, it also markedly reduces staff time while improving training evaluation (cost: $4,500). 2. Satellite broadcast programs--UA-CPHP produced more than 50 broadcasts, which remain available as videostreams and/or podcasts. Viewership of archived programs sometimes surpasses that of the live event (cost estimate: $23,000 to $39,000). 3. Interactive online courses--Seventeen courses have registered more than 44,000 learners worldwide. The Pandemic Influenza course alone has reached more than 16,000 registrants from all 50 U.S. states and at least 56 other countries (cost estimate: $30,000 to $65,000). UA-CPHP's experience as a preparedness training center has confirmed that contemporary technology can be employed to improve and increase the reach of these training efforts. An additional finding was that, quite unintentionally, the intensive use of distance-based educational modalities designed to reach public health practitioners in New York State has afforded UA-CPHP a substantial national and international audience as well, and at no additional cost.

Online Interprofessional Education: Perceptions of Faculty Facilitators

Background and Purpose. Online asynchronous learning can overcome geographical and timetabling barriers to interprofessional education (IPE). Little is known about how best to facilitate IPE in an online teaching environment. The purpose of this study was to evaluate faculty perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to online IPE. Subjects. Eleven faculty online facilitators (OLFs) who were experienced educators and familiar with IPE participated in the study. Methods. OLFs participated in in-depth interviews following facilitation of interactive online courses specifically designed to promote IPE. Transcribed interviews underwent qualitative content analysis. Results. Varied group composition and were barriers for the OLFs. Making explicit links between professional roles, role modeling collaboration, and encouraging reflection were facilitators to online IPE. Discussion. Online IPE is still in its infancy, and there is much to learn about the most effective ways to stimulate IPE. Conclusions. Identification of common barriers and facilitators can assist faculty in developing strategies to promote optimal learning in online IPE. Key Words: E-learning, Online learning, Interprofessional education. INTRODUCTION Scheduling and geographic barriers are a significant impediment to many educators wanting to implement interprofessional education (IPE).1 Use of asynchronous online learning is an appealing solution as it allows karners to access a course at a time and location convenient to their situation. There is an emerging interest in interprofessional online karning; however, the most effective content and processes have yet to be determined.2 The online facilitator (OLF) is an important determinant of student learning. The skills required are not simply transferred from a traditional classroom environment,3 where the interaction is face-to-face. From an IPE perspective, the OLF needs to make collaboration more explicit, encourage students to share their professional perspectives, and role model collaboration. The OLF has to balance the learning related to specific content with interprofessional learning; thus, the skill set required is somewhat different than one who facilitates online learning with a unprofessional group. Identification of challenges and strategies to promote online IPE will assist in the development of effective learning experiences. The purpose of this study was to evaluate faculty perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to online IPE. METHODS This project was part of a larger study evaluating interprofessional online learning.4 Students from 11 different professions volunteered to participate in interactive online learning modules ranging from 3-12 weeks in duration. Modules were developed by interprofessional teams with the intent of being facilitated by a faculty member. Twelve online facilitators who were experienced educators and familiar with IPE were selected for the experience. All OLFs received an orientation to online learning and facilitation. Of the 12 OLFs, 11 participated in an in-depth personal interview following completion of the modules to share their experiences, strategies, and lessons learned. These interviews were audiotaped, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed through conventional qualitative content analyses.5 This consisted of a line-by-line review of the transcripts to identify a key word or phrase that represented the participants' words. Codes similar in focus were then grouped to form themes that emerged from the data. RESULTS The resulting themes with representative quotes are presented. Barriers to IPE The silent student. The most frequently cited barrier to interprofessional learning was limited student participation. As one OLF stated, I think the big barrier is the silence of those that don't participate. In many instances, limited participation was attributed to the fact that the students were not receiving credit for their involvement. …

Experimental Identification – an Interactive Online Course

The aim of the article is to present an interactive online course on experimental identification. Besides teaching materials in the traditional workbook form, new computer based training and electronic media – Internet is used to enable interactive and computer supported way of learning.

Evaluating e-learning concepts: the first ERS interactive online course

Information technology develops rapidly, as does the potential for e-learning. Two examples of the new trends that develop year on year include blended learning and rapid e-learning. However, do these new concepts really bring added value to medical education? In order to try to answer this question, the European Respiratory Society (ERS) School has undertaken a two-fold initiative: 1) to identify the preferences of European respiratory specialists and trainees in respiratory medicine with respect to different e-learning concepts; and 2) to explore the acceptance of different approaches for web-based teaching. Within this initiative, the interest in three educational approaches was evaluated:

Nursing Education and Nursing Service Partnership: Teaching Leadership Online

In collaboration with practicing nurse leaders, a nursing leadership course was delivered online to a diverse community of learners. The University of South Dakota serves a state population where half of the counties qualify as frontier, and 11 Indian reservations are located within its borders. Today’s professional nurse must have skills to provide leadership and management to deliver effective health care to the community. This article highlights the partnership with rural and urban nurse leaders to jointly teach an online leadership course in an associate of science nursing degree program. This partnership, in concert with an interactive online course, creates a community of learners who benefit from a group of practicing nurse leaders. Identification and steps to recruit nurse leaders are outlined. A description of the course content and overall design is provided. To engage class participants, a variety of interactive teaching strategies are detailed. Testimonials of nurse leaders are presented.

Evaluation of interactive online courses for advanced practice nurses.

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine the effectiveness of two interactive online learning modules for advanced practice nurses (APNs) and (b) to examine the participants' demographic characteristics and their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of online learning. A purposive sample of 73 registered nurses and APNs enrolled in graduate study or continuing education completed an online learning course. These participants were pretested and post-tested using a knowledge test developed by the authors. Participants were also surveyed for demographic characteristics and perceptions toward online learning. The findings of this study support case-based online learning as a successful method in the education of APNs. The evaluation of the online modules and the enthusiasm from students indicated success of this teaching/learning method. The majority of learners responded positively toward the online method of learning and included comments that indicated they enjoyed learning using this method, would like to have the site available at their practice locations for reference, and would like to have other courses designed and delivered in this manner. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE AND EDUCATION: The effectiveness and quality of the online instruction ultimately matter most to student satisfaction in online courses. The future of online education is dependent on well-structured, interactive, and substantive programs. Educators are challenged to continually assess and evaluate the changing learning needs of APNs.

An Interactive Course in Nuclear Receptor Signaling: Concepts and Models

This interactive online course sketches some of the landmark studies and discoveries in the field of nuclear receptors since the field's inception. Although the course is primarily focused at advanced life sciences students and scientists from other disciplines wishing to become acquainted with the field, it is likely to also be a useful resource for anyone associated with the discipline of nuclear receptor signaling. This animated course was created by members of the Nuclear Receptor Signaling Atlas (NURSA; www.nursa.org), which is an NIH-funded research consortium formed with the aim of providing a repository of nuclear receptor-related data for use of the scientific community.

Socio-Cultural Analysis of Two Cases of Distance Learning in Secondary Education

Virtual Schooling for primary and secondary students is becoming increasingly common across the United States. Although distance education has typically been used to address the needs of adult U.S. learners, its use with schoolchildren has been limited. The rapid development and diffusion of ICT has prompted advances in the use of distance education to serve these students educational needs--particularly those in remote rural settings. In this paper we analyse and contrast two case-studies that were gathered to inform researchers and practitioners of online schooling--a case in which two rural schools `coordinated' the use of two-way interactive video to provide live synchronous learning, and a school `replacement' model that provided an interactive online course for dispersed students with periodic live interactive synchronous learning sessions. Analysis drew on Cobb and his colleagues' (2003) techniques to delineate communities of practice and Wenger's (1998) work on boundary encounters, brokers, and boundary objects.

Evaluation of interactive online courses for advanced practice nurses

PurposeThe purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to examine the effectiveness of two interactive online learning modules for advanced practice nurses (APNs) and (b) to examine the participants’ demographic characteristics and their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of online learning.Data sourcesA purposive sample of 73 registered nurses and APNs enrolled in graduate study or continuing education completed an online learning course. These participants were pretested and post‐tested using a knowledge test developed by the authors. Participants were also surveyed for demographic characteristics and perceptions toward online learning.ConclusionsThe findings of this study support case‐based online learning as a successful method in the education of APNs. The evaluation of the online modules and the enthusiasm from students indicated success of this teaching/learning method. The majority of learners responded positively toward the online method of learning and included comments that indicated they enjoyed learning using this method, would like to have the site available at their practice locations for reference, and would like to have other courses designed and delivered in this manner.Implications for practice and educationThe effectiveness and quality of the online instruction ultimately matter most to student satisfaction in online courses. The future of online education is dependent on well‐structured, interactive, and substantive programs. Educators are challenged to continually assess and evaluate the changing learning needs of APNs.

Evaluation of interactive online courses for advanced practice nurses

Evaluation of interactive online courses for advanced practice nurses

An interactive online course: A collaborative design model

The purpose of this paper is to describe the evaluation results of using an interactive design model for the development of an online course. Specifically, it examines: (a) how an interactive design model was used to develop collaborative and cooperative learning activities; (b) how activities were structured to promote the level and quality of communications among students, as peers, and between students and the instructors; and (c) how students responded to such interactive design model. The paper also provides information about the delivery process and describes what happened when this interactive model was fully implemented and used.

Problems with using components in educational software

Reuse is vital in the education world because the time and money necessary to create high-quality educational software is a significant problem. Estimates for the cost of creating a single well-designed, highly graphical and interactive online course in the commercial domain range from several hundred thousand dollars to a million or more. Thus, the idea of reusable software components that can be shared easily is tremendously appealing. In fact, “component” has become a buzzword in the educational software community, with millions of dollars from the National Science Foundation and other sponsors funding a wide variety of “component-based” projects. But few, if any, of these projects have approached the grand vision of creating repositories of easy-to-reuse components for developers and educators. This paper investigates some of the factors that stand in the way of achieving this goal. It also looks forward to a new genre of educational software that we hope will emerge when the basic components problems have been addressed. We begin by defining the word “component” and looking at several projects using components, with a focus on our Exploratories project at Brown University. We then discuss challenges in: critical mass, intellectual property issues, platform and system specificity, programming in the university environment, quality assurance, searching and metadata, and social issues. We look at relevant software engineering issues and describe why we believe educational applications have unique factors that should be considered when using components.