A predominant goal of medical education is the development of clinical skills among students. However, in spite of burgeoning integration of web based technologies to support curriculum in medical schools, the use of the Web in fulfilling the clinical skills objectives remains scarce. The lack of web based support for higher order intellectual objectives can be attributed to the difficulty in programming complex, simulated case learning environments, with appropriate levels of content enrichment, authenticity and deeper levels of interactivity. It can be surmised that faculty who are inexperienced in the use of advanced web technologies will be unable to take advantage of the unique features of the Web to facilitate learning of complex intellectual domains. Given the advantages placed on creating authentic case based learning environments, this omission is a loss that can be effectively addressed via the creation of authoring tools.

In order to facilitate the process of creating online cases, UCLA School of Medicine has developed a Web based case-authoring tool for its medical school faculty. The tool allows a comprehensive, interactive presentation of cases, including the problem, history (including images) and tests. It elicits a subjective, objective, diagnosis and plan from students. Expert feedback can be entered to allow a comparison of student responses with the expert's. Web based resources can be added to each case to extend learning. This presentation will introduce the authoring environment to the audience. The interface and the instructional design will be discussed. Technical details related to the development of the authoring environment will be explicated briefly, and a demonstration of how a case is created using the tool will be included. Finally, a qualitative evaluation of the tool will be presented with the strategies for evaluation and an analysis of faculty response.

The audience will be able to: a) view the benefits of authoring complex cases without knowing programming; b) acquire the code for the authoring program from UCLA with appropriate credit; c) examine the possibilities of case development with an authoring tool versus programming.

Anju Relan, PhD

60-051 Center for Health Sciences

School of Medicine, UCLA

Los Angeles, CA 90095

Phone: 310-206-0572

Fax: 310-267-0320

Email: arelan@ucla.edu

Website: http://www.medsch.ucla.edu/idtu/projects/model/1welcome.htm