Evaluation of an E-learning Course in Biomedical Technology Management

In this paper, we present the results of a study which was conducted in two stages. The first part of the paper contains literature search findings and analyzes the existing self-assessment scales for measuring motivation and satisfaction of students that were developed by other authors. In the second part of our study we created a battery of self-assessment measures for collecting data for an overarching set of gamification-related constructs/variables selected in accordance to those that are reported in literature). These scales were constructed by (a) adaptation and improvement of items from existing measures and (b) creation of novel items for measures of constructs that were found to be important in research articles on gamification and educational games. The initial empirical evaluation of this new questionnaire (battery of assessment scales) was performed on a large convenience sample of students (N=201) who attended a hybrid course on computer programming. These respondents were divided into an experimental group, which used gamified e-learning course material, and a control group, which used a parallel (non-gamified) version of the e-learning course with equal theoretical content/For each self-assessment scale of the questionnaire Cronbach alpha coefficients were calculated and the scales were slightly corrected to improve their internal consistency. We report the results concerning the effects of gamification on motivation and satisfaction, which were measured by respective assessment scales.

This article explains how teachers can use educational vlogging as a tool to facilitate students’ reflective practice in primary schools. Vlogging is a short duration video recording that engages the learner in critical self-reflection. The widespread accessibility of digital devices in Irish schools offer primary teachers opportunities to use vlogging as a tool to enable students to reflect on their learning, and gather learning analytics that provide insight into the learning process. The Educational Entrepreneurial Approach (EEA) (Crotty, 2014) to action research was employed to show how examining a Covid-19 school news broadcasting project provided the rationale for developing and creating an e-learning course. This course consisted of fifteen educational videos that aimed to enable teachers to facilitate student vlogging in a disadvantaged primary school. Research data was gathered through reflective journaling and validated through meetings between me as researcher (Author 1), my Supervisor (Author 2), and fellow students on the MSc. in Education and Training Management (eLearning) colleagues – hereafter referred to as MEME. Findings offer insights into the benefits and limitations of educational vlogging and detail how creating the e-learning course, Vlogging in the Primary School, was transformative for me and for the school. The outcomes indicate that educational vlogging can potentially benefit teachers and students in Irish primary schools and beyond.

The successful development and strengthening of Ukraine’s international and intercultural relations with other states leading to the global expansion of social and economic integration requires future International Relations specialists to communicate professionally in foreign language. In this context, there is a need to take new approach to foreign language teaching in institutions of higher education. The present study proves that one of the most promising directions in education development in the modern world is blended learning as it combines the strengths of traditional educational methods and benefits of online learning technologies. The article states that e-learning course is a major means of blended learning implementation in the process of foreign language communicative competence training for future International Relations specialists. The e-learning course structure for students of the first year in specialty 055 «International relations, public communications and regional studios» based on the MOODLE 3 platform has been described. The results of the experiment at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine demonstrate that using the MOODLE platform forms and improves the future International Relations specialists’ foreign language communicative competence and ensures the main educational process requirements (openness, accessibility, interactivity, and instrumentality) have positive effects for both teachers and students.

Despite the increasing numbers of online courses, there have been several concerns and criticisms related to teaching and learning in e-Learning. Previous research has suggested that students are often dissatisfied and frustrated with their e-Learning courses. A more important issue is that e-Learning has not led to pedagogical changes. A large percentage of e-Learning courses have been developed to deliver simple factual knowledge through tutorial-based instruction. In seeking a paradigm shift from information delivery-centered to learner-centered e-Learning approaches, this chapter suggests that theoretically and empirically grounded design frameworks are required, and that strategies for interactive and collaborative learning should be considered and incorporated in designing learner-centered environments. To identify instructional design strategies, the author critically reviewed and analyzed relevant case studies. Three design guidelines are presented with specific strategies and examples: 1) meaningful opportunities for online collaboration, 2) minimization of communication barriers and maximization of idea sharing, and 3) increasing perceived levels of social presence.

At Østfold University College, we have focused on interdisciplinary collaboration to provide a comprehensive introduction to academic writing for first-year students, emphasizing a standardized program to ensure consistency in instruction. The article is divided into two studies. Both studies aimed to improve first-year students' academic writing skills by evaluating different instructional methods. The research questions for the studies were as follows: Study 1: Can the use of pre- and post-tests in an e-learning course in academic writing help students acquire new knowledge? Study 2: How do students experience blended teaching in academic writing? Study 1 examined whether pre- and post-tests in an e-learning course could help students acquire new knowledge in academic writing. An e-learning package was developed around eight themes: problem statement, text writing, sources, source criticism, study techniques, referencing techniques, plagiarism, and ethics. Forty-four first-year students took a pre-test of fifteen questions and received immediate feedback. After completing the instructional components for each theme, they took a post-test. Results showed significant improvement in post-tests, indicating increased understanding of the themes. Study 2 aimed to establish a quality-assured course package combining e-learning with on-campus instruction. A Facebook group was also created for students to ask questions about academic writing. Fifty-eight first-year students completed a questionnaire containing twelve different questions related to the evaluation of the various teaching methods in the blended instruction. In study 2, the evaluation of the academic writing course revealed that all three teaching methods were perceived as important for learning.

E-learning courses have become popular means of delivering knowledge to students in higher education institutions. Most participants of learning process note that they benefit from the possibility to gain knowledge regardless of time, location and device they use. Among other advantages possibility to return to learnt material several times, divide material into parts, consume information through different types of educational materials (video, infographics, presentations, text, quizzes etc.) are mentioned. At the same time most of the surveyed students chose that they lack personalization both of materials and studying process, limited in terms of fulfillment and would like to have a choice of the level of study. The educational trend that is able to put into practice the above mentioned requirements is blended learning as it has a range of advantages such as usability, consideration of individual abilities, additional materials introduction, activities monitoring. Although it combines offline and online learning, effectiveness of e-learning courses designed for its implementation play a crucial role. To make a learning process correspondent to the students’ needs adaptive learning can be introduced in higher education institutions. Adaptive learning is a methodology that allows to identify level of students’ knowledge and their learning styles and transform materials, tasks and ways of their delivery according to the needs of learning process participants. LMS Moodle offers different solutions for adaptive learning. They provide administrators and teachers with tools to vary all stages of a learning process starting with delivery of information and ending with assessment.

Biomedical Engineers should be prepared to adapt to existing or forecasted needs. Today, education in Biomedical Engineering (BME) in Europe is mainly influenced by: a) the European policy on higher education, b) research & development (R&D) programs and c) the market demands. There is a strong pressure on education, training and life long learning programs to continuously adapt their objectives in order to face new requirements and challenges.The main objective of the TEMPUS IV, CRH-BME project is to update existing curricula in the field of BME in order to meet recent and future developments in the area, address new emerging interdisciplinary domains that appear as a result of the R&D progress and respond to the BME job market demands. The first step is to extensively review the curricula in the BME education field.The work is carried out through collection of information from the project partners by the means of questionnaires. The present study covered 46 countries in Europe and identified 40 countries with Biomedical Engineering programs. Approximately 150 Universities across Europe offer in total 297 BME programs, distributed as following: 77 Undergraduate programs offering BSc degree, and 220 Postgraduate programs, from which 161 offer MSc degree and 59 offer PhD degree.The results of this study reveal that Biomedical Engineering programs are experiencing rapid growth after the year 2000 and especially during the last five years. This leads to an increased number of Biomedical Engineers available today on the market and it is expected to play an important role in meeting the existing and forecasted needs in the BME field.KeywordsBiomedical EngineeringEducation programs reviewTEMPUS

On behalf of the entire membership of the Korean Sociey of Medical and Biological Engineering (KOSOMBE), I sincerely welcome all of you to the first issue of Biomedical Engineering Letters, published by KOSOMBE in collaboration with Springer-Verlag GmbH. This is an epoch-making new project for the Society and its members. We envision that this journal will become a major leading-edge publication in the field of biomedical engineering in the coming years. We hope that the subscribers and those submitting papers to the journal will share this vision with us. First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all who have contributed to the launching of this important journal in the February of 2011, especially to Prof. SangHoon Lee, editor-in-chief, and Prof. Jae Sung Lee, managing editor, as well as Prof. Sun I. Kim, immediate past President of KOSOMBE, who during his administration made a very tough decision to start this new English journal. I am also very grateful to the Springer staff for their superb support and to our printing company for their excellent job. As of 2011, KOSOMBE is proud of its 32-year history. In 2006, it sucessfully co-hosted the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering in Seoul, with approximately 3,000 participants from all over the world presenting about 2,500 papers under the theme of “Imaging the Future Medicine.” In 2010, we had a busy and productive year as we started another thirty years of history in the making, with the major new initiative on strengthening the scientific activities including the biannual congresses. And now we launch this new English journal under the theme of “Publishing the Future Medicine.” This journal with our new emblem of society on the front cover symbolizing “the collaborative development of medicine, biology, and engineering” will be a very meaningful addition to the chronicle of the biomedical engineering world. I strongly hope that the journal will encompass a wide array of disciplines within and beyond biomedical engineering and provide a creative space for facilitating scientific communication and solving health-related tasks in this aging world. Personally, it has been a great learning experience to be a part of this launching process, and I would like to thank our Board members for having supported the launching of this journal. Now, you are cordially invited to share your scholarly experiences with fellow researchers around the world by publishing papers in Biomedical Engineering Letters.

PurposeFrom previous studies, we had observed that the number of biomedical engineers and technicians (BMETs) skilled in the maintenance of medical devices (MDs) were limited in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and that a likely parallelism existed between BME maintenance-related tasks and house chores mainly carried out by women in daily life. Our objective in carrying out this study was to understand underlying local cultural and social factors and domestic traditions interfering with the inclusion of women in the field of clinical and biomedical engineering (BME), and to identify existing gaps in opportunities for women in Engineering, Science and Technology (EST) in this region.MethodsWe carried out an online survey involving 51 respondents (70.6% women, 29.4% men), to investigate gender-biased and cultural perceptions of maintenance-related tasks among engineers/technologists/technicians in BME and other allied professions in SSA​. The survey was refined through focus groups and pilot tests to assess its validity, and then shared among specific associations of women in engineering and other bodies in EST, as well as some hospital communities and institutions.ResultsThe survey brought to light evidence of prejudices against women in the society and workplace and showed that the adoption of our parallelism hypothesis has potential for increasing medical device maintenance practices in SSA hospitals.ConclusionsThere is an apparent need to further study the possible effects of this sociological model through leveraging local culture and domestic traditions in ways that could ultimately increase the leadership and numbers of women BMETs in SSA.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently considered a disruptive key technology in the field of biomedical engineering. However, there is more to it than just the applications, advantages and challenges of AI in this field. The book takes a closer look at various additional aspects and provides a more comprehensive view of AI in healthcare. The first part provides introductory considerations from a historical, technical, socio-scientific, legal and ethical perspectives. Complementing this, the second part illustrates these topics using various applications in the field of biomedical engineering. These cannot be covered exhaustively, but a broad overview is provided and the relevant challenges are addressed. Finally, the last part deals with questions relating to the framework conditions, the regulation of AI and the associated business models. Last but not least, brief introductory statements from the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space and the DGBMT on the topic of AI in biotechnology and healthcare underscore the relevance of the contributions.

Regarding the impact of visceral dysfunction on quality of life, bowel and bladder management is a very important problem. The management of the patient with neurological bladder is often a source of uncertainty for both patients and healthcare personnel. Since the need of specialized training is growing, two CME e-learning courses have been developed to provide physicians and nurses competencies for the enhancement of the daily life of the patients. The present study aims at evaluating courses attendance and outcomes. Attendance data confirm the interest for both courses. The results document a pretty good objective and subjective effectiveness of the e-learning courses but low attitude to exploit he support of an asynchronous tutor. The analysis of test results gives some hints for eventual quality improvement of the courses themselves.

Undergraduate biomedical engineering (BME) programs have increased considerably and the drives for continuous improvement of the programs persist. While covering a comprehensive base of multiple disciplines required for BME studies on campus has been a big challenge, the Industry Professional Advisory Committee members usually recommend incorporating experiential learning modules of coop or internship in the curriculum. Embedding cooperative modules within the undergraduate BME educational program is aimed to assist students in gaining the highly valuable reallife experience. The cooperative work modules facilitate the students in exploring different realistic aspects of the complex work processes in the biomedical engineering field. The values of the cooperative learning modules are recognized by the academicians. However, the developers of the BME curriculum find the inclusion of cooperative work experience or internship with a heavy course load in the program a formidable challenge. The main objective of the present work is to develop few cooperative experiential learning models for BME undergraduate students. Some variations in the models can be applied to graduate students though the constraints are different. In this paper, designs of a few co-op/internship models embedded in the undergraduate BME curriculum are described. A BME Co-op model with three phases at a teaching hospital is illustrated. Other models of one semester at a medical device company or at an academic research lab are mentioned. The results obtained clearly support the proposed co-op/internship scheme. In conclusion, integrating the cooperative work experience will be of significant value in biomedical engineering education by giving opportunities for real-life work experience to the students. For sustained success, it is essential that a suitable model must be selected to blend with the mission of the overall training program at the academic institution.

The Biomedical Engineering Department of Rajalakshmi Engineering College (REC) is hosting an International Conference, RIBE2023, on July 27-28, in a hybrid mode. The conference encompasses several tracks covering emerging and active areas of research and innovation in the field of Biomedical Engineering, in both academia and the healthcare industry. These include Biomedical Signal Processing, Medical Imaging and Processing, Biomedical Instrumentation, Rehabilitation and Artificial Organs, Biomechanics and Robotics for Healthcare, Non-invasive Technologies for Diagnosis and Therapy, IoT-based Assistive Technology for Healthcare, and Nano and Micro: 3D Structure and Imaging. This initiative offers an excellent platform for professionals, students, faculty, and industry experts to share their experiences and foster collaborations for future pursuits. The event is organized by the REC faculty and the students of the Biomedical Engineering Department, offering an opportunity for participants to delve into the breadth and depth of the field, prepare for future challenges, and be part of the transformation in healthcare. Keywords: Biomedical Engineering, International Conference, RIBE2023, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Healthcare Innovation, Medical Imaging, Biomedical Instrumentation, Rehabilitation, Artificial Organs, Biomechanics, Robotics for Healthcare, Non-invasive Technologies, IoT-based Assistive Technology, Nano and Micro, 3D Structure and Imaging, Academia, Industry Collaboration, Rapid Learning, Digital Transformation.

We are delightfully announcing the launch of Biomedical Engineering International, a new interdisciplinary international scholarly open-access journal dedicated to publishing original and innovative research in the field of biomedical engineering. Any type of scientific paper, including reviews, original research papers, communications, or short notes, are welcome to be submitted. Any paper will further undergo the process of peer-reviewing according to the scientific standards of the journal. The scope of Biomedical Engineering International comprises all the directions of interest for the development of (pre-)clinical applications that could improve the quality of life, from tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and drug delivery systems, to microfluidics, neural engineering, and micro- and nanotechnology. Thus, Biomedical Engineering International aims to create an interdisciplinary communication tool for scientists in various fields, from chemists, engineers, biologists, to physicists, informaticians, and theoreticians. For this, the publication is done under the policy of Platinum Open Access, meaning that articles are free for readers and no article processing charges are demanded from authors, nor from their institutions. The publication charges for articles in Biomedical Engineering International are covered by AMG Transcend Association, Romania. Through this, Biomedical Engineering International addresses equality in academic publishing, by making the process available to both researchers and readers. Additionally, authors benefit from increased visibility of their research and thus, an increase of citations and higher influence in the academic world. There are no restrictions on the total length of the papers as the journal encourages the publication of detailed experimental and theoretical research. In this regard, Biomedical Engineering International paves the way to completely free academic publishing services in the biomedical engineering research field. In this manner, we gladly invite you to submit your papers in the field of biomedical engineering to be considered for publication in Biomedical Engineering International and we are looking forward to collaborating with you!

This article aims to demonstrate how an expert feedback process was used to identify emerging issues within a prototype extracurricular course on dental trauma and show how the feedback was addressed prior to piloting the course more widely. Dowse's Design Research Model was adapted for the design and development of a prototype dental trauma e-learning course. This paper will focus on step five, gathering expert feedback and the evaluation process. Four critical features emerged from the feedback that ought to be incorporated into the e-learning course design, namely, 1) keep resources clinically relevant; 2) keep resources simple to learn; 3) make resources easy to understand; and 4) support self-learning. The results demonstrate the value of an expert feedback process for improving a prototype designed to address a major gap in knowledge among medical doctors identified in the literature.