Update on using e-lectures at the RVC - what have we learned?

Survey of International Veterinary Students Digital Literacy Skills

Wikivet Survey AMEE eLearning Symposium 2015 Presentation from Nick Short

VET Talks launched by IVSA and WikiVet with RVC support - a new approach to learning

Link to VET Talks on IVSA site

Digital Literacy Poster from VetEd 2015

eCardioConsult: Virtual veterinary cardiology patients

Advances in technology are leading to new and innovative approaches to clinical teaching and learning. Compared with passive methods of learning, an interactive case-based approach promotes development of clinical decision-making skills and is a challenging and fun way to learn. Although interactive digital patient programs are technically difficult to produce, the ‘virtual’ format provides an interactive environment where it is safe to make mistakes!

The case of the breathless dog

The RVC has developed an interactive online learning platform in which the user navigates through clinical cardiology scenarios. This provides vets and veterinary students with a simulated experience in treating cardiac small animal patients. Each virtual patient follows a case through presentation, history and physical examination, problem list and differentials, diagnostic tests, treatment and follow up. If users select the wrong management option, the patient may die. 

At vital stages of the case a veterinary ‘expert’ appears and at the end of the case the expert also provides a walkthrough of how to manage the case. The first virtual patient is now used by all third year RVC students as part of their cardiovascular teaching. In addition the case has been made available to veterinarians and has already been translated into 4 different languages.

The first case is available at http://www.rvc.ac.uk/review/.

If you are using a mobile device a Flash browser such as Photon or Puffin is required.

Education Technology Magazine - SPOCs

Back in March 2013, the RVC Learn team ran a Small Private Online Course (SPOC) which aimed to teach staff how to use RVC Learn more effectively.  Called “Learn RVC Learn”, the SPOC addressed the colleges need for a new flexible approach to staff training, and allowed staff to learn at anytime, at any pace and in any place. 

The SPOC aimed to teach staff how to use RVC Learn.  It covered all of the basic functions of Learn, as well as some more advanced features, all of which were taught in 4 weekly modules (Module 1 – Introduction to RVC Learn, Module 2 - Adding Resources and Activities, Module 3 – Using Communication Tools and Module 4 – Using Online Assessment Tools).

This unique online course could be taken in the users own time, and each module on the course took no longer than 2 hours to complete.  Face to Face training was provided for each module, at each campus, as well as an introduction to the course in the first week and a wrap up session in the final week.   Staff could choose whether to complete the whole course, or take selective modules they may be interested in.  The face to face sessions were not mandatory and were run on a drop in basis.

Education Technology Magazine has an interesting article on the rise of the SPOC which features the RVC SPOC, and its creator, RVC Learn Manager Ben Audsley.  “Going Boldly where no course has gone before” can be found here.

MoodleMOOT 2015

MoodleMOOT 2015

MoodleMoot is a yearly conference dedicated to the users, developers and administrators of the popular open-source Learning Management System (LMS) Moodle. (RVC Learn)

This year the Moot will be held at City University in Dublin, Ireland from 11^th – 14th May.

Two members of the eMedia team submitted proposals to present at the conference, and both presentations have been accepted!

Alistair Spark, the VLE Officer at the RVC, will be presenting “Piloting double blind marking through Moodle at the RVC”, a presentation on our use of the new Online Coursework Management tool, created in conjunction with the ULCC. 

Ben Audsley will be presenting “Student Learning Technologists – a MoodleMoot success story” as a Pecha Kucha presentation-  a  presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (6 minutes and 40 seconds in total).  This presentation will tell the story of how the SLT role evolved at the RVC, and how students are helping the eMedia department shape the future eLearning strategy.

More information about MoodleMoot 2015 can be found here.

Photograph of Royal Veterinary College specimen is Overall Winner at 2015 Wellcome Image Awards

This photograph, taken by Michael Frank, is of a 40-year-old specimen from the Lanyon Anatomy Museum of the Royal Veterinary College has just been selected as Image of the Year 2015 by the Wellcome Trust. 

The photograph is part of a project between Michael and Nick Short, Head of the eMedia Unit at the RVC, to bring new perspectives to a selection of specimens at the Lanyon Anatomy Museum. The specimen, a preserved uterus of a pony, approximately five months into pregnancy with the foetus still attached, has been preserved in formalin and was photographed through its Perspex container.

The RVC is honoured to have won this prestigious award especially in the light of such stunning competition. We hope that through our photographic techniques, we have managed to capture the magic of these old anatomy specimens in a new digital format.  Our passion has been to bring these specimens back to life and create a unique resource which will be available for students of anatomy to study and appreciate for many generations to come.

Michael Frank commented “I am delighted that this image has been chosen as the 2015 Wellcome Image Awards overall winner. This project has involved many hours working with Nick Short at the RVC. Our vision was to capture these incredible specimens which have sat for many years on the shelves of the Lanyon Anatomy Museum. Using sophisticated photographic techniques, we were able to rejuvenate these special dissections and make them available to a whole new audience of students, academics and the public. I like to think that this digital format is a fitting tribute to all the skill of past generations of anatomists in creating these resources and the many generations of vets who have benefited from studying them.

In addition to the winning image, another image from the collaboration between Michael and Nick was also shortlisted, the reticulum (stomach chamber) of a goat. The RVC completed a hat-trick of shortlisted entries, with PhD student Sophie Regnault’s 3D image of a preserved lizard specimen also making the final twenty. These successes are reflective of the larger initiative led by the eMedia team at the RVC to bring anatomy online. Full details of their work can be found on their website.

Picture Editor of BBC Focus magazine, James Cutmore, who was a member of the judging panel, said: “As far as standout images go, the image of the horse’s uterus with the foetus still inside was incredible and just sticks in my mind. It evokes many different emotions at once. It’s fascinating, sad, macabre, almost brutal. Yet the subject is also delicate, detailed and beautiful. The image shows us a large and magnificent creature reduced to this sad, fragile and half-formed creation, which I find very humbling.”

Another judge, Tim Smit, Founding Director of the Eden Project described the winning image as “hypnotic, like a Hieronymus Bosch painting…only it is real and truly marvellous.”

From March 19^th 2015 all the winning images will be exhibited at eleven science centres, museums and galleries, from the Eden Project in Cornwall to Satrosphere in Aberdeen, and as far afield as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Koch Institute), USA, will display the images in their own styles to spark imaginations everywhere.

The images will also be displayed in the window of the Wellcome Trust headquarters in London, and will be made available on the Wellcome Image Awards website. They already feature in Wellcome Images collections, where they can be accessed and used along with more than 40,000 other contemporary biomedical and clinical images. The Awards were established in 1997 to reward contributors to the collection for their outstanding work.

The following venues will be exhibiting the 2015 Wellcome Image Award winners:

·         At-Bristol

·         Cambridge Science Centre

·         Dundee Science Centre

·         Glasgow Science Centre

·         Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Koch Institute), USA

·         Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI),  Manchester

·         Satrosphere, Aberdeen

·         Techniquest, Cardiff

·         The Eden Project, Cornwall

·         The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, USA

·         W5, Belfast

Predictions for 2015

Some interesting pointers for the coming year .... will review how many of these come true next year! 

View the Info graphic here!

RVC shares anatomy images with Wellcome Trust

The eMedia Unit has been working with the Wellcome Trust to share images of anatomical specimens at the RVC. These range from historical dissections stored in formalin pots - brought alive by the latest in digital photography.

The images are free for users to access in low resolution from the Wellcome Trust Images site. The Trust also provides access to high resolution versions which can be printed out on A0 at the most amazing quality .... we have several in our office and they look great!

Virtual Patients - Cardiocases

The RVC has developed an interactive online learning platform in which the user navigates through clinical cardiology scenarios. This provides vets and veterinary students with a simulated experience in treating cardiac small animal patients. Compared with passive methods of learning, an interactive case-based approach promotes development of clinical decision-making skills and is a challenging and fun way to learn.

This Flash simulation is the first in a series of interactive cardiology virtual patients. Users can apply their knowledge and decision making skills to manage a cardiology case from presentation to treatment. This project was supported by Novartis. Requires Flash 9 or later.

CardioCase

Click to view Powerpoint Poster

First Year Birthday for EuFMD - eMedia Collaboration

The RVC eMedia Unit is proud to have been working with the EuFMD team on developing their e-learning site. The quality and commitment of the team has produced an outstanding resource which has had widespread praise from users throughout Europe and further afield. 

Well done to you all!

** it's our e-learning site's birthday today!**  The EuFMD's e-Learning site is one year old today!! The site, produced in partnership with the Royal Veterinary College, University of London, now has over 400 registered users. It hosts the EuFMD's online training courses, including: - Induction and Refresher training courses for participants in EuFMD's Real Time Training programme. - The online FMD Emergency Preparation Course, which prepares veterinarians to diagnose and investigate an FMD outbreak. - Webinars to update, network and train participants from EuFMD's member states and beyond. - Induction training for EuFMD's workshops on the use of modelling as a decision support tools. - A repository of FMD related resources. The site is developing rapidly, with translation of the existing training courses now underway, and additional training courses in development. The FMD Emergency Preparation Course will be available in French and Russian later this month, with additional language versions planned for later in 2014. Email EuFMD-Training@fao.org for more info! Check our website: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/commissions/eufmd/commissions/eufmd-home/en/ Follow us on Twitter for updates #EuFMD.                                           **HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!**

Vet-Revise: A Smarter Way to Study | Jisc elevator

Vet-Revise: A Smarter Way to Study | Jisc elevator

Flipped lectures - presentation to Bloomsbury Learning Environment 21st May 2013

Presentation on the use of Flipped Lectures at the RVC for inductions on rotation and revision.

Watch the Panopto Recording here of the lecture.

Global Learning for Global Health Professionals

Global Learning for Global Health Professionals | lidcblog:

An overview of the Global Student project that the RVC has been a partner in. See more about this work at www.rvc.ac.uk/global 

Video Learning in Veterinary Education

This is a webinar that we recently recorded with Mediacore on using video to support veterinary education at the RVC. In particular in this video we discuss the new opportunities arising from the use of the latest video technologies.

Virtual Tours

We have been working on creating a virtual tour of the RVC campus based on a series of panoramic digital images. Each panorama comprises a series of high resolution raw images which are first stitched together to create a 360 degree panoramic views.

Using the Pano2VR software package, we then imported all the panoramic scenes into one combined tour. Within the tour it is possible to create hotspot links from scene to scene or use an overlay map to help guide the user around the tour.

Pano2VR offers some good additional features such as the ability to embed media and information pages within the tour. You can even add a sound track which is linked to your position in the tour.

We feel that this package provides a good opportunity for prospective students visiting our web site to tour the campus and determine if this is the right place for them to study

If you would like to know more about how we created these tours, please drop me an email : Nick Short (nshort@rvc.ac.uk).

Visit the Tour

e-Media Unit collaborates with EuFMD

The European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (EuFMD) program is collaborating with the RVC eMedia Unit to create an e-learning site which supports government vets working to control FMD in the field. The site includes a comprehensive Induction course and a new Foot-and-Mouth Disease Emergency Preparation course. The courses have been created by the RVC e-learning team working closely with subject specialists at the EuFMD and comprise a combination of expert authored content, videos, forums and assessment. 

The EuFMD states that if a country experiences an FMD emergency, it can be difficult to rapidly train large numbers of vets in key FMD issues – particularly if vets are recruited from non-government service to provide support. In such a situation, this course can be made available rapidly to large numbers of member state vets, enabling them to do the course. Veterinary management can then be provided with a list of who has completed the course, and will have confidence that a basic level of training has therefore been achieved.

EuFMD already provides each member state with the option of having some vets trained in FMD on their real-time courses, but veterinary management may wish to have larger numbers of vets trained on FMD. These course will be made available to member states who can then nominate a number of vets to take part. Such a session would be accompanied by a tutor  on the forum to encourage discussion and answer questions. This training of course is not as in-depth or comprehensive as the real-time courses, but it can complement and support other training activities such as seminars. In an environment of reduced resources for veterinary services, this e-learning course may be able to fill a training gap in an efficient way, supporting member state preparedness.

More information 

RVC Goes Mobile!

The RVC has just launched a mobile App for students which provides access to much of the core information that they need through their mobile phones.It is available to download for iPhones, iPads, Android tablets and phones, Bleckberry devices and Windows 8 tablets.

The App includes Campus Maps, Freshers’ Week information, Students’ Union News and Information, RVC News, Travel Information, Search the Staff Directory, Library Search and Loan Renewals, PC Availability around Campus, Print Credit, IT guides to setup your devices and much more.

Feedback in the first week since the App was released has been enthusiastic from students and staff alike. User statistics show that the majority of students have now downloaded the app and the the most popular feature has been the ability to view the interactive course timetable.

The App was developed in collaboration with Ombiel who have developed similar mobile applications for many other universities.

Posters for the Vet Education Conference in Dublin

We were co authors on a number of posters presented at the excellent Vet Ed conference in Dublin this July. Here are a few samples:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5eGAew0PJMiNEZlbW9kMEtOeEE/edit?usp=sharing