Susan Roberts
Knowledge Weavers, Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

ABSTRACT:

Members of the Knowledge Weavers team will describe and demonstrate tools and templates that the team has developed to help health science educators produce high quality, Web-based multimedia resources that can be used for a variety of educational purposes. The presentation will include a demonstration of the Curriculum Development Tool (CDT) that is in development. This Java-based application allows faculty of all technical abilities to create customized Web resources including didactic sites, disease description sites, and interactive case-based learning sites. The tool provides faculty with two "short cuts" for creating Web resources that include:

1) a pre-defined content outline for each type of educational resource and 2) a variety of templates to control the look and feel of the final result. Faculty can easily edit or add content without concern for the presentation and they can choose a professionally designed presentation to match their individual teaching style. Both the content and the presentation are based on successfully evaluated Web sites produced by the Knowledge Weavers team. The tool also includes a multimedia selector that allows faculty to add images, sounds or videos to the presentation. A built-in File Transfer Protocol (FTP) tool makes it easy for faculty to upload the final resources to their institution's Web server.

The team will also demonstrate two tools for the creation of interactive Web-based "practice" quizzes for student learning. The tools are designed to Allow faculty to maintain a database of practice questions and feedback, and to easily create Web-based "practice" quizzes from the question bank without learning HTML or JavaScript. The first quiz tool, WebQuizBuilder, runs client-side and consists of a stand-alone FileMakerPro database interface and a program (written in Perl) that generates a Web-readable multiple choice quiz. The second quiz tool, QuizGenerator, runs server-side, and has been developed using a mySQL database and the PHP3 programming language.

It is accessible to faculty authors and student users through any Web browser. QuizGenerator has two parts: 'Take a Quiz' and 'Create a Quiz'. These quiz creation tools are NOT designed for online testing but rather for self-paced student learning. We will also discuss what we have learned about the pros and cons developing and using server side versus client side tools. All of the tools that the Knowledge Weavers team have developed are available under an open source license and may be freely utilized or modified by the health science community.

The Knowledge Weavers Project is sponsored by the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah and is supported by a National Library of Medicine grant. The Knowledge Weavers team includes information management specialists, Web programmers and designers, and multimedia production artists. Our goal is to provide health sciences educators with high quality, Web-based multimedia resources that can be used for a variety of educational purposes. Visit our web site at http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/ to find out more about us and the other resources and tools that we have developed.

BENEFIT TO PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:

Members of the Knowledge Weavers team will describe and demonstrate tools and templates that the team has developed to help health science educators produce high quality, Web-based multimedia resources that can be used for a variety of educational purposes.

Susan Roberts, Knowledge Weavers
Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library.
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT
84109
Phone: 801.581.3031
Email: sroberts@lib.med.utah.edu
Website: http://library.med.utah.edu/kw