Online Educational Portal Research Articles

Blockchain Ecosystem for Credit Transfer in Education

Data is the key to measuring educational effectiveness promptly. But data and education are trapped and siloed across centralized systems, causing information discrepancies and inaccuracies. This has caused countless delayed opportunities, academic credential disagreements, and never-ending confusion around learning potency. This lack of transparency, despite having its fair share of usefulness, has also been quite burdensome. To alleviate this issue, our team has developed a blockchain protocol that verifies professional certifications that have been earned both locally and through another well-established online educational portal. This system allows accuracy, reliability, and immutability that has never been implemented. This foundation of clear, verified data will then be used further to power blockchain-based applications. The result is that our attempt at a versatile, holistic, and decentralized view of educational performance ensures the best e-learning outcome for students and teachers alike.

Innovative Online Educational Portal Improves Disease-Specific Reproductive Knowledge Among Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is often diagnosed in early adulthood, affecting patients through their reproductive years. Many patients, lacking knowledge about IBD and reproduction, make uninformed decisions. Although patients have turned to the Internet for information, it remains unclear if online resources are effective for improving and retaining IBD-specific reproductive knowledge. We aimed to elucidate if a multimedia vs text-only online educational intervention could improve IBD-specific reproductive knowledge for more than 6 months. We developed a website covering genetics, fertility, surgery, pregnancy, medications, delivery, and postpartum in the context of IBD. Adult IBD patients were randomized into study groups (multimedia or text-only) and provided 60-day access. Participants completed pre-, post-, and 6+ month-postintervention pregnancy knowledge (CCPKnow) questionnaires. Results were compared using nonparametric tests. Of 111 registered participants, 78 (70.3%) completed pre- and postintervention questionnaires, and 37 (47.4%) subsequently completed the 6+ month questionnaire. Demographics were as follows: median age (interquartile range [IQR]) 29.3 (25.6-32.9) years, Crohn's disease n = 54 (69.2%), females n = 63 (80.3%), of which n = 5 (7.9%) were pregnant and n = 19 (30.2%) had previously been pregnant. The median CCPKnow scores (/17) (IQR) were 8.0 (3.0-10.0) pre-intervention, 16.0 (13.00-17.00) postintervention, and 14.0 (12.0-15.0) 6+ months postintervention. The median within-subject increase in score was 6.5 pre- to postintervention, and 4.0 pre- to 6+ months postintervention (both P < 0.001). The median increase in score (pre- to post-) was 8.0 for the multimedia group and 6.0 for the text-only group (P = 0.216). An evidence-based, online educational portal can significantly improve and maintain IBD-specific reproductive patient knowledge for more than 6 months.

Using social media to disseminate education about Alzheimer’s prevention & treatment: a pilot study on Alzheimer's Universe (www.AlzU.org)

ABSTRACTBackground: The use of social media may be a valuable tool for dissemination of patient education interventions. However, in Alzheimer's disease (AD), little data exists about the effectiveness, associated cost, or conditions for utilization.Method: Alzheimer's Universe (www.AlzU.org) is an online educational portal that provides evidence-based educational content for the public, and a variety of activities related to optimizing AD management. The primary goal of our study was to assess the effectiveness of using the social media platform Facebook.com as a tool to recruit subjects to visit AlzU.org via targeted advertising and evaluate the associated costs. Secondary outcomes included AlzU.org join rates, lesson and activity completion rates, user demographics and attitudes about the education research platform.Results: A total of $706 generated 4268 visits to AlzU.org via a series of page posts promoted with targeted advertising to individuals with previously expressed interest in ‘Alzheimer's disease,’ to those who had ‘liked’ the Alzheimer's Association page, and followers of www.facebook.com/AlzheimersDisease. Advertising used different promotional taglines in the Facebook Advertising manager tool using ‘Cost Per Click’ and the ‘Optimized for Engagement’ settings. Across all strategies combined, 503 visitors joined AlzU.org (11.8% join rate), 412 engaged with at least one lesson/activity (82%), and 100 completed all available lessons and activities (19.8%). Users were primarily women (79.8%) and the most common age group was 50’s (43.3%, range 22–92). The majority joined AlzU.org to learn more about AD prevention or treatment (66.3% and 65.3%, respectively). Over 90% were satisfied with their experience.Discussion: Subjects were quickly and cost-effectively recruited to AlzU.org. Completion rates of education content and activities were adequate, and subjects were highly satisfied with their experiences. Overall, targeted advertising on Facebook.com was an effective means of disseminating AD education online.

Rare disease: a national survey of paediatricians’ experiences and needs

ObjectiveTo describe the experiences of Australian paediatricians while caring for children with rare diseases, and their educational and resource needs.DesignA brief online survey was developed and deployed to a representative...

P552 An online educational portal improves concerns of inflammatory bowel disease patients regarding pregnancy and medication

P552 An online educational portal improves concerns of inflammatory bowel disease patients regarding pregnancy and medication

Mo1844 An Online Educational Portal Is Effective in Improving Knowledge Regarding Reproduction and IBD

Mo1844 An Online Educational Portal Is Effective in Improving Knowledge Regarding Reproduction and IBD

P416. An online educational portal is effective in improving knowledge regarding reproduction and IBD

P416. An online educational portal is effective in improving knowledge regarding reproduction and IBD

AHRD! Take the opportunity and pioneer vocational MOOCs

In this perspective, we advocate that the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) can play a significant role in pioneering and promoting vocational Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). To do so, we introduce Coursera, an online educational portal that provides a variety of MOOCs for free and serves adult learners, as an example. In addition, we discuss lessons AHRD can learn from Coursera’s experience. We also explore the benefits of leading vocational MOOCs for the academy. This paper has implications for the Human Resource Development scholarly and practitioner communities.

Brugada phenocopy induced by ischemia or Brugada syndrome unmasked by ischemia?

We read the casereport by Jiang et al. with great interest and notedthat their patient presented with a Type-1 Brugada ECG pattern after aradiofrequency catheter ablation procedure for atrial fibrillation [1].The caseis important asit contributesto thegrowingbodyof literatureon Brugada phenocopy (BrP) [2,3].BrP are clinical entities that present with ECGs identical to those oftrueBrugadasyndrome(BrS)butareelicitedbyvariousclinicalcircum-stances [2,3]. They may be induced by a number of clinical conditionsthat are characterized into six etiological categories: (i) metabolicconditions; (ii) mechanical compression; (iii) myocardial ischemia p (iv) myocardial & pericardial disease; (v) ECGmodulations; and (vi) miscellaneous [4]. The hallmark to diagnosislies in a series of electrocardiographic and clinical features (Table 1)that aim to differentiate BrP from BrS [5,6]. More information onthe condition and a stepwise diagnostic approach can be found at theinternational registry and online educational portal for BrP (www.brugadaphenocopy.com).In the case presented by Jiang et al. [1], the patient developed aBrugada ECG pattern and a marked increase in troponin I (TnI) follow-ing an ablation procedure for atrial fibrillation. We agree with theauthors that the mechanism behind this phenomenon was unlikelydue to coronary vasospasm as the ST-elevations were sustained over anumber of days. Michael et al. described a similar case of ST-segmentelevations that occurred during an ablation procedure for atrialfibrillation [7]. An urgent coronary angiogram revealed a sub-totalocclusion within the inferior branch of the 1st diagonal. We suspectthat ischemia was alsothelikely mechanismbehindST-segment eleva-tions and increased TnI in the present case [1]. Blood clots may beextremely small, and lysis of these clots can occur in a matter of mi-nutes.Itisconceivabletherefore,thatthiswasanembolicphenomenonthat was not captured by coronary angiography.As previously discussed by our group [3], ischemia may eitherinduce a BrP [5] or modulate myocardial sodium channels resulting intheunmaskingoftrueBrS[8].Aprovocativetestusingasodiumchannelblocker was therefore mandatory in this case. The negative result,coupled with the patient's lack of personal or family history suggestiveof BrS, allows us to confirm the diagnosis of BrP in this case. It will beincluded in our database as a Type 1A BrP under the category of ische-mia and pulmonary embolism. We recommend the authors use theterminologyBrugadaphenocopyinthefutureforconsistencyintheliter-ature and to facilitate future research on this clinical phenomenon.Conflict of interestNoneReferences

Iterative Usability Evaluation for an Online Educational Web Portal

Online education is a popular paradigm for promoting continuing education for adult learners. However, only a handful of studies have addressed usability issues in the online education environment. Particularly, few studies have integrated the multifaceted usability evaluation into the lifecycle of developing such an environment. This paper will show the integration of usability evaluation into the development process of an online education center. Multifaceted usability evaluation methods were applied at four different stages of the MU Extension web portal’s development. These methods were heuristic evaluation, focus group interview and survey, think-aloud interviewing, and multiple-user simultaneous testing. The results of usability studies at each stage enhanced the development team’s understanding of users’ difficulties, needs, and wants, which served to guide web developers’ subsequent decisions.