Overview
Click on any item in the below list to jump to details:
What is the history of the elearn project?
The elearn project was first proposed at the Education Committee Meeting of ISCOS, Italy, September 2009. Following this meeting, a grant application was submitted to Access to Healthcare (a Danish-based organisation). This was successful and the project commenced mid 2010. An IT company was appointed in February 2011 and content development commenced at this time.
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When will the elearn project be finished?
The elearn project will be launched at the ISCOS Conference in London, 2012. The website will go live at this time.
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Will users have to pay to access the learning material?
No, users will not have to pay. The learning material will be free for anyone to access.
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Who is responsible?
The elearn project is an initiative of the Education Committee of ISCOS in collaboration with a large number of other affiliated and associated organizations, including the Asian Spinal Cord Injury Network, The Indian Spinal Injury Centre, The University of Sydney, Livability and Handicap International.
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What is the overall aim?
The overall aim of the project is to improve care and rehabilitation of people with SCI on a global scale. This will be achieved by reducing inequality in education for health professionals around the world and improving access to high quality education for all.
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What is the purpose?
The purpose of the learn project is to develop online training modules appropriate for medical, nursing and allied health professionals in SCI.
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Who is the target audience?
The target audience is students and junior clinicians with a particular focus on the needs of students and junior clinicians from less-resourced countries.
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What topics will be included in the physiotherapy content?
There are 14 PT modules. The titles of the 14 modules are:
- The medical essentials
- Principles of PT management
- Assessment
- Setting goals
- Bed mobility: understanding movement
- Wheelchair mobility: understanding movement
- Gait: understanding movement
- Upper limb function: understanding movement
- Strength: assessing and treating
- Contractures: assessing and treating
- Motor skill: assessing and treating
- Fitness: assessing and treating
- Respiratory: assessing and treating
- Pain: assessing and treating
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What is the format of the physiotherapy content?
Each module contains a short didactic overview to introduce students to some key concepts. Each didactic overview is followed by between 2 to 6 interactive learning activities in which students are required to look at videos, images of patients, case studies and different clinical problems. The emphasis is on developing problem-solving and independent learning skills. The learning experience for users should be very different to reading a text book and/or reading web-based pages of facts.
There is a strong focus on internationalism with case studies developed around patients and therapists from many different countries and cultures.
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How detailed are the physiotherapy modules?
The physiotherapy modules are for students and junior clinicians. They are not intended for experienced clinicians. Therefore, only the common clinical problems are covered. Consideration has also been given to the total amount of time that a student could be expected to spend on the modules. The aim was for a student to be able to complete all the modules in less than 10 hours.
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How many screens are there?
There are currently over 1,500 screens devoted to the physiotherapy content.
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Who is funding the project?
The project is primarily funded by Access to Healthcare (a Danish-based organisation). However, the physiotherapy modules have additional funding from Lifetime Care Authority of NSW, Australia and the Australian and New Zealand Spinal Cord Society.
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Who is responsible for developing the physiotherapy content?
The physiotherapy content is being developed by a team of international and senior physiotherapists representing 20 countries. They are:
Amukwachi Cornelius (Kenya); Annemie Spooren (Netherlands); Carey Bayliss (Australia); Chitra Kataria (India); Darryl Caves (Canada); Dominiek Beckers (Belgium); Dr. Anghelescu (Romania); Fateh Muhammad (Pakistan); Fumihiro Towatari (Japan); Grant Huston (Canada); Ines Bersch-Porada (Switzerland); Jen Hastings (USA); Jo Glinsky (Australia); Joy Bruce (USA); Karin Postma (Netherlands); Kiichi Satou (Japan); Lisa Harvey (Australia): Lori Khan (USA); Melanie Skeen (South Africa); Mr Ilyas (Pakistan); Mr Narongrat Sawattikanon (Thailand); Muzaffor Hossain (Bangladesh); Nalina Gupta (India); Narasimman Swaminathan (India); Paul Dobbelsteijn (Netherlands); Paula Garcia Molinari (Chile); Prof. Gelu Onose (Romania); Rebecca Dytor (UK); Rohana Perera (Sri Lanka); Shannon Sproule (Canada); Shofiqul Islam (Bangladesh); Su Nielsen (Denmark); Sue Ann Sisto (USA); Trung Mong Hang ; Ulla Bergner (Germany); Verna StavricLov (New Zealand); Vivien Jorgensen (Norway).
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How were the physiotherapists responsible for the content selected?
Calls for expressions of interest were circulated to all the country representatives of the International Network of SCI Physiotherapists. In addition, ISCOS circulated calls for expression of interest to all its affiliated societies.
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Will all physiotherapists be given an opportunity to comment on the content?
All country representatives for the International Network of SCI Physiotherapists will be given an opportunity to comment and make suggestions on the content of the modules.
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Will there be potential to expand and/or change the content in the years to come?
Yes, there will be plenty of potential to expand and/or change the content. The hardest part of the project has been setting up the content management system. Once this is done, it should be relatively simple to add more modules and more content.
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Does all the content need to be approved?
Yes, all the content has to be approved by the Education and Scientific Committees of ISCOS.
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Do you have permission to use images of people?
We are only using images of identifiable people if we have their written permission. Similarly, we are only using drawings and illustrations in which we hold copyright.
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What type of software and computer language is being used?
Most of the site is written in basic html with a content management system. However, the interactive screens have been done in flash. Some of the considerations have been:
- The screens needs to load in countries with slow bandwidth
- We need to be able to make the interactive screens independent of costly IT support.
- We don’t have sufficient funds to pay consultants to provide first class, super-slick screens.
We are aware that some people believe flash is on the way out. However, we have sought multiple professional IT opinions on this and the advice we have received is that flash is still the only economical and sensible way to generate interactive screens. Flash is not usable on Apple mobile devices but it is unlikely that users would be viewing the content using these devices in less-resourced countries.
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How will evidence be integrated into the content?
This aspect of the project is yet to be done. However, there currently is the facility to add “notes” to each screen. These will appear in a pop-up window. We intend to provide summaries and synopses of research to support the information provided on the screens.
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What do the screens look like?
The screens have been made using the following principles:
- As little text as possible
- As many photos and images as possible
- Short and simple sentences
- Stand-alone content that does not require voice overlay
- As multicultural as possible
- As many case studies as possible reflecting people from all cultures, socio-economical backgrounds, countries and ages
- As interactive as possible
- A mixture of high and low technology solutions to rehabilitation
Here are some examples of some screens:
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Contact us
Email us on adminSCIPT@med.usyd.edu.au if you have any questions or concerns or if you want to contribute something to this newsletter.
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