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News from the open access movement


Monday, January 28, 2008

OA portal of medical education

Vangelis G. Alexiou and Matthew E. Falagas, e-meducation.org: an open access medical education web portal, BMC Medical Education, January 24, 2008.  Abstract:  

Background:  Internet can serve in opening the door to a brand new world of high quality medical information. However, the chaotic size of data available in the WWW is often misleading. We sought to provide the world medical community with a web portal that may be used as a clearinghouse providing the outlet for dissemination of high quality WWW educational products.

Methods:  Directories of the relevant WWW resources have been compiled and others are being currently under development to cover most medical fields. A custom-built medical search engine was created. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds and video sharing services were reviewed for their quality and were presented along with case-based educational presentations through a user-friendly web portal interface. A directory of guidelines database is currently under development.

Results:  The educational portal e-meducation available [here] has been launched in December 2006 and at the moment, provides links to more than 800 educational web-pages, more than 2100 clinical practice guidelines, 32 news feeds, and 14 educational videos. The web site also hosts 40 case-based presentations and a custom medical search engine.

Conclusions:  Based on the incorporation of simple and tested educational strategies such as case based instruction and interactive learning, e-meducation.org aims to become a prototype platform that offers a more convenient interface to existing products, resources and medical contents.