Implementation Strategy/Timetable


Specific tasks to be completed

 

Creating the Virtual Resources for biomedical education

Primary participants
The faculty and support staff
Methodologies involved
The task for creating the Virtual Resourceswill consist of

a) acquiring and developing WWW and other Internet resources,

b) acquiring and installing the appropriate hardware and network resources to enable anytime anywhere computing,

c) identifying, categorizing and the appropriate veterinary and related development in virtual biomedical content.

A user friendly comprehensive WWW home page for the Virtual Biomedical Education
Faculty experts from different veterinary disciplines will be consulted in the design as well as in identifying relevant WWW sites that are of educational merit for the TUSVM program. Using browsers (Mosaic, Net-scape, Explorer, etc.), the hypertext
mark-up language (html) and hypertext transfer protocol (http), a user can access the Web serve from anywhere and at any time.Other Internet resources that will be set up include a BBS and a ListServ. Newer and more advanced WWW scripting languages will be developed. The project faculty and staff will identify existing Internet resources and IT resources in WWW or create new ones and structure them to advance biomedical education. Organizing the Internet resources to facilitate and strengthen local and distance teaching/learning, as well as lifelong learning, is critical. This will involve creating access paths to virtual libraries, multi media learning resources, and digital veterinary medical resources. Other Internet capabilities including e-mail, ftp, anarchie. and telnet will be made available. This database will have hyperlinks to critical information elsewhere.
Tangile Results
Technological advancement of TUSVM to include state-of-the art computer/electronic equipment; faculty development in virtual technology.
Timeline(s)
From 10/97 to 9/98

 

Creating the Mutimedia Resources

Primary participants
The faculty and support staff
Methodologies involved
The approach is modular with develop small and discreet hypermedia programs in selected veterinary disciplines. Faculty with expertise and commitment, especially those working on case-based learning/ teaching strategies or those with problem-based learning approaches will be coopted for this endeavor. Specific topics that lend themselves to visual and auditory dimensions for exchange of information and/or learning will be emphasized. Faculty from each of the three departments of the college will be recruited for this purpose. Specific examples for the initial stage could be courses in Epidemiology, Parasitology or Physiology. At least five modules are expected to be developed per year.
The multimedia development will rely on the use of MacroMind Director (for animation), and the use of Quick Time for moving and static images and Premiere for editing both visual and sound digital data. The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) and 3D modeling and visualization programs including Audio (e.g. real Audio) and video (e. g. QuickTime programs will be used integratively.
One full time scientific visualization specialist will focus on this area. The individual will be supported by another person with computer graphics expertise. Once the hypermedia resources are developed, they will be tested, evaluated and finally linked to the Virtual Resources on the WWW.
Tangile Results
Acqisition of technological instructional infrastructure to supplement the curriculam in biomedical sciences. Continued accreditation by the AVMA as a result of state-of-the-art instructional facilities
Timeline(s)
From 10/97 to 9/98

 

Development of faculty expertise in Virtual Biomedical Learning

Primary participants

The faculty and support staff
Methodologies involved
Two key issues for success in the use of technology in education are:

a) faculty development and training in an on-going Learning manner; and,

b) changing the traditional teaching/learning paradigm to an interactive and technology enriched learning/ teaching environment. The emphasis will be on interactive and participatory learning usi multimedia resources. The learner will be empowered to become an active and interactive participant in this enterprise by having access to two critical IT resources; the Internet and Multimedia based teaching/ learning resources. Teachers will be encouraged to integrate it in teaching/learning activities in the curriculum. To accomplish this, teachers will be provided continuous training and support in the use of technology in education. Faculty will be encouraged to interact with other faculty in their own respective areas as well as with others elsewhere. Access to e-mail and listservs will therefore be critical. Teachers will be provided time off to pursue a focused training activity in the use of IT.

Once a nucleus of faculty has been well trained, the task of development of teaching/ learning resources that are based on hypermedia/multimedia will ensue. These same faculty will also serve as role models to inter digitate the use of technology within the courses that they teach. Current TUSVM expertise in MacroMind Director will be used to create Web based hypermedia animations and related resources.
Tangile Results
A minimum of 10% of the TUSVM faculty will be computer competent and sufficiently advanced to use Information Technology as a teaching and research tool.
Timeline(s)
From10/97 to 9/98

 


Developing the Multimedia Presentations

Primary participants
The faculty and support staff
Students engaged in the TUSVM curriculam Year 1 through Year 4
Methodologies involved
Students in the third and fourth years of the Multimedia support staff veterinary curriculum, involved in "clinical rounds" or research projects will be trained in the use of Multimedia and Multimedia curriculum Year I presentations. Appropriate hypertext templates, through Year 4 or presentation programs such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Aldus Persuasion will be used in this activity. Via these presentation tools, other multimedia resources including QuickTime Premiere and Real audio will be integrated into one presentation. During a period of one year at least thirty different topics in multimedia formats, developed by students can be created for reference and use by others.
Tangile Results
By their fourth academic year, students will achive 100% IT competency.
Timeline(s)
From10/97 to 9/98

 


Fostering communication among educators and learners

4. Primary participants
The faculty and support staff
Students engaged in the TUSVM curriculam Year 1 through Year 4
Methodologies involved
To foster effective communication among communication support staff faculty and students, a Listserve and Bulletin Board (discussion group)will be set up for the the TUSVM . Internet e-mail and electronic bulletin curriculum s will be developed to enable students to communicate with their teachers and other colleagues in cyberspace. Just as importantly, TUSVM students and scientists will be able to communicate and share information via news groups and list servers and the WWW. the tradational classroom will be expanded into virtual classrooms where the only limit will be one's technologic and woekshopswill be provided to faculty and students, the technologic capability will not be a limiting factor.
Tangile Results
Faculty, staff and student cimmunication networks established and operational utilizing state -of the -art computer/electronic equipment and software.
Timeline(s)
From 10/97 to --


Creating an environment that promotes collaborative learning

Primary participants
The faculty and support staff
Students engaged in the TUSVM curriculam Year 1 through Year 4
Methodologies involved
Mentoring, tutoring and group study practices have been found to significantly improve learning of minority students as well as others. It is very critical to strengthen biomedical education by promoting group study habits. IT resources that would minimize these problems will be encouraged. clusters of learner workstations will be positioned in strategic locations in the college, all geared to promote and cultivate cooperative and group study habits. For these interested in individually paced independent studies, appropriate Internet and IT resources will be made available.
Tangile Results
Maintenance of a dynamic praticum oriented instructional method which will help to decrease attrition and increase retension/ graduate rates.
Timeline(s)
From 10/97 to ---


Student training

Primary participants
The faculty and support staff
Students engaged in the TUSVM curriculam Year 1 through Year 4
Methodologies involved
Interdigitating the use of computer technology in the teachng/learning process using selected case-study courses including clinical rotation, epidemiology, physiology and anatomy will be expanded during this phase of the project. As in past years, third year clinical students will be required to complete a two week course intendedto develop expertise in veterinary scholar workstation computing methodologies and to utilize the Internet and the WWW technology resources to manage and process biomedical informationand advance their scientific activities inveterinary medicine. 'Me students will advance to the Internet and WWW and use these digital resources to prepare scientific documents and presentations.
Fourth year students will be required to present their weekly grand rounds seminar using PowerPoint and related hypermedia resources. One CBE programmer will spend 100% of his/her time assisting and training students in the use of presentation software.
Tangile Results
By their fourth academic year, students will achive 100% IT competency
Timeline(s)
From 10/97 to --

.


Evaluation of the effectiveness of the Virtual biomedical Learning Center.

Primary participants
The Biomedical Information Management Systems (BIMS) Director and staff
The faculty and support staff
Students engaged in the TUSVM curriculum Year 1 through Year 4
Methodologies involved
The project evaluation and assessment process will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative measures. Data will be gathered using questionnaires and network based automated data gathering resources. The latter will rely on new software called MacAdministrator (High Resolution, Foxboro, MA). The system records application usage on Client machines that are on the network. The usage information includes user identification along with the applications that each user used and how long the applications were used for. Each students frequency and duration of computer use will be recorded. The complete data base for each student will consist of. identification and registration information, responses to pre & post questionnaires. duration on the computer while using specific applications, and grades (i.e.. GPAs in all years at school to date).
A code-book has been developed to identify each field in the data base. The computer based data collection system that is described above records all student based interaction precisely and comprehensively. The precise data collected via the network based data collection system will eventually enable analysis of the information to assess the impact of electronic technology based systems on veterinary education.
The data will be stored in a FileMaker Pro database management system. The analysis of the data will involve descriptive /exploratory, comparative and multivariate analytic techniques. The analysis will rely on the use of SAS or StatView statistical packages.
Tangile Results
Maintenance of a dynamic practicum oriented instructional method which will help to decrease attrition and increase retention/graduation rates. By their fourth academic year, students will achieve 100% ITcompetency.
Timeline(s)
From 10/97 to --


Expanding and advancing the networking infrastructure and resources.

Primary participants
The Biomedical Information Management Systems (BIMS) Director and staff
Methodologies involved
Advancing the existing local area network of advancing the Information the University to handle digital data trans-networking Management mission will be a priority as is the use of wired as infrastructure and well as wireless networking. The migration resources toward the fast ethernet capability for transmitting data at least 100 megabits per second is needed. The existing University-wide IT line is already clogged and often slow to respond. Moving multimedia images along this path is already problematic. When network based video conferencing and team-based electronic activities are added, the problem will get worse.
The university has recognized this and is consulting with Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) to:a) improve network access and resource utiliza tion, b) increase bandwidth. c) implement a scaleable network architecture to take TUSVM into the 2 1st century via ATM technology. Such an advanced infrastructure will fully support video, voice and data transmission across the university's network as well as enabling faster and greater access to the Internet and the WWW.
Funds are now needed to implement such a needed network infrastructure. For such an advancement, it is important to develop in-house network expertise. This strategy will provide independence, flexibility and is cost effective by minimizing future support and maintenance costs. One full time network systems expert will spend 100% of his time on these critical areas of the local area network. This person will provide training in accessing network resources and will be responsible for maintaining the complex and advanced network resources including the sizable number of WWW servers of the college.
Tangile Results
Acquisition and maintenance of technological instructional and research infrastructure to supplement the University biomedical science program. Continued accreditation by the AVMA as a result of state-of-the art instructional facilities
Timeline(s)
From 10/97 to --