LipidsOnline: Resources
for Educators and Academics
Michael Fordis
Doug Alexander
John Searle
Center for Collaborative and Interactive Technologies, Baylor
College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
Abstract:
LipidsOnline is a Website resource to provide educators,
researchers, and practitioners with continually updated informational tools on
effectively managing and preventing cardiovascular disease. The site contains three components: 1) a
Slide Library, 2) a Virtual Meeting Forum, and 3) an Abstract Library. The purpose of the Website is to provide the
target audience with access to state-of-the-art information in the area of
lipids and cardiovascular disease and resources that can be readily
incorporated into classroom or online teaching formats. An advisory committee composed of national
leaders in the area of lipids serves as the editorial board and oversees all
content development and review. This
committee also provides input on the identification of clinical and scientific
advances, development of resources, design and selection of informational
tools, and assessment of site capabilities.
The Slide Library consists of approximately 400 slides of
slides in PowerPoint assembled into presentations on cardiovascular disease and
lipids. Examples of topics include
Epidemiology, Effects of Lifestyle, Pharmacological Therapy, Metabolism,
Clinical Trials, and Risk Assessment and Treatment. Each slide contains topic title, slide title, key words, speaker
notes, and references linked to the respective abstracts in Medline. User can either select a pre-assembled talk
to view or can search the library by key words. From any slide of interest, the user can identify related slides
by clicking on the key word. Slides are
displayed in either a thumbnail or an enlarged view. The user can download slides in either a pre-assembled
presentation or a custom presentation that the user assembles from
searches. Downloads are expedited using
compression and other approaches. Users
without access to computers and videoprojectors for presentation have the
option of requesting hard copies of the slides via the Website.
The Virtual Meeting Forum consists of presentations of
emerging clinical and research advances.
The first series of presentations are delivered by national experts and
review the key issues likely to receive priority in the development of new
guidelines for cholesterol management by the National Cholesterol Education
Program’s third panel of the Adult Treatment Panel. The presentations are delivered using multimedia elements
assembled using SMIL technology and include streaming video, scrolling text,
and synchronized slides. The user can
also navigate through the presentation via slide title. Each presentation includes an abstract,
biographical information on the speaker, and references with links to abstracts
in Medline. The presentation is also
available in transcript form with slides for users that either choose not to or
cannot use the multimedia format.
The Abstract Library consists of commentary by members of
the Advisory Committee on research advances delivered at national
meetings. Topics are selected by the
Advisory Committee. Each commentary
includes an introduction or overview, a summary of the key points, key slide(s)
if available, clinical implications and relevance, and references with links to
abstracts in Medline.
The Website is built with a three-tier architecture using back-end
Microsoft SQL database connected to the presentation layer using Cold Fusion
and custom software as the middleware.
LipidsOnline will be launched to the public in March 2000 at http://www.lipidsonline.org/
Benefit in Attending
Session:
The LipidsOnline Website represents an informational resource and set of tools that will be available to educators in the audience for use at their home institutions. It is also envisioned that this approach will also have applications in assembling teaching resources for use by faculty within an institution.
PRIMARY AUTHOR'S
INFORMATION
Michael Fordis
Center for Collaborative and Interactive Technologies
Baylor College of Medicine
Medical Towers
1709 Dryden, Suite 519
Houston, Texas 77030
Telephone Number: 713-798-8256
Fax Number: 713-798-6516
E-mail Address: fordis@bcm.tmc.edu
CO-AUTHORS'
INFORMATION
Christie Ballantyne, Doug Alexander, Stephen Price, Tony Adams,
Trinka Schneider and John Searle
Address(es):
Alexander, Price, Adams, Schneider, and Searle
Baylor College of Medicine
Medical Towers
1709 Dryden, Suite 519
Houston, Texas 77030
Ballantyne
Baylor College of Medicine
6565 Fannin St. M.S.A.601,
Houston, 77030
Telephone Number(s):
713-798-8256 Alexander, Price, Adams, Schneider, and Searle
713-790-5800 Ballantyne
Fax Number(s):
713-798-6516
E-mail Address(es):
Doug Alexander jda@bcm.tmc.edu
Price, Stephen shp@bcm.tmc.edu
Adams, Anthony T aadams@bcm.tmc.edu
Schneider, Trinka khs@bcm.tmc.edu
Searle, John jsearle@bcm.tmc.edu