Advances in medical education and practice: role of massive open online courses

Abstract

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are increasingly available in the area of health and medicine. These MOOCs are offered through various commercial and noncommercial online platforms. When offered through reputable institutions, they can provide valuable access to reliable information without the constraints of time, geographical location, or level of education. Most current courses appear introductory in nature. In its drive for quality health care, the National Academy of Medicine has prioritized a focus on known chronic care conditions. Many of these conditions are shared internationally. Among its initiatives, the academy encourages consumer and professional groups, patients, clinicians, health care organizations, and universities to work together to identify evidence-based care processes consistent with best practices, organize major prevention programs to target key associated health risk behaviors, and develop systems to measure and evaluate improvements in the provision of patient- and family-centered health care. Carefully designed and collaboratively developed MOOCs would appear a valuable resource to contribute to these initiatives. Such MOOCs can, 1) increase the health literacy of the public with regard to the prevention and treatment of known chronic care conditions, 2) provide ready access to continuing professional, and interprofessional, education, and 3) explore innovative teaching models for student learning focused on patient- and family-centered care. MOOCs would also appear helpful to facilitate effective communication among international communities of patients and clinicians, including student clinicians, with shared interests. Further, the accumulation of MOOC data through large-scale measurement and analysis, obtained nationally and internationally, has the potential to assist in greater understanding of the risk for diseases and their prevention, with this translating into medical education, and authentic, patient- and family-centered methods for student learning. This paper explores these issues.

Do tutors make a difference in online learning? A comparative study in two Open Online Courses

“…MOOCs are increasingly available in health and medical areas, and appear to facilitate effective communication among international communities and disseminate knowledge across health specialities and across geographies (Goldberg & Crocombe, 2017). The ability we describe to reach a wide range of professional groups, as well as geographical settings including those in low-to middle-income countries is encouraging; this is especially as the reach of the internet is rapidly expanding "In developed countries, slow and steady growth has increased the percentage of the world's population using the Internet, from 51.3 per cent in 2005 to 80.9 per cent in 2018.…”

Twelve tips for integrating massive open online course content into classroom teaching

“…Interactions within MOOCs are extremely powerful due to the interesting audience of peer learners (Reinders and de Jong 2016). A diversity of peer medical students, medical specialists, other health professionals, and even patients and their families from all over the world contribute to discussion fora of different kind (Goldberg and Crocombe 2017). This offers an opportunity to learn about medical concepts from different perspectives, cultures, and religions.…”

Oral health education for the masses

“…Highly respected academic institutions throughout the world have developed MOOCs on diverse topics, ranging from art history to global economics to computer programming. Health care education is also delivered via MOOCs, with a heavy emphasis on medicine and medicine‐related topics . A quick survey of some current MOOC platforms yields very few courses focused on dental medicine.…”