The Blackboard LMS Goes to Medical School

To facilitate new-style learning, the Vermont medical school created an electronic platform called COMET (College of Medicine Educational Tools), which is a set of hardware, software, and human resources that gives all students and their teachers access to online curricula through a variety of off-site and in-school connections to the Internet. The Blackboard platform was chosen to open the COMET system, to serve as its front end, and give everyone a common user interface. It also provides easy development of course materials and exams, calendaring, message announcements, and links to other sources. According to a statement on the University of Vermont College of Medicine Web site, "This particular software package was chosen after careful review of competing packages for its ease of use, flexibility and, most importantly, for the ability of students in the curriculum to be able to search across the curriculum for information across the continuum of the four year curriculum."

There at the medical school, streaming video (through Blackboard) is used in various ways in teaching. Jemison explains that much of the teaching is "case-based," and so video is often used to document cases. For example, to teach general doctoring skills the students are videotaped as they go through mock patient physical exams in "fake doctor offices" (as Jemison describes them) using fake patients (or "standardized patients," in education lingo). The role of standardized patient is usually filled by one of the area's many amateur community actors. Employing two cameras per fake office, student doctor/patient interactions are videotaped and sent instantly to the server, where they are stored. Later, the student makes an appointment with his or her professor, during which time the footage is reviewed, with the professor critiquing the student's performance. This footage is also made available to the student on demand, for further personal review.

Video streams are also available to the medical student from the COMET system while he or she is right there in the fake doctor office going through the mock exam. For example, let's say a student is examining an actor/patient who is complaining of chest pains. Now, the actor can display the outward symptoms but not the physical ones, so that needs to be represented through online media. The student can go to the PC there in the exam room and, employing the Blackboard interface, he or she can access video from the server, which could include a fictional patient sonogram, an EKG or X-rays. These, of course, have been pre-positioned there on the server to support this particular lesson.

The medical school also sometimes uses video streams in a classroom setting for demonstration purposes. For example, the college has employed an actor to play the role of a schizophrenic and has videotaped a scenario of a schizophrenic episode. The professor pulls this video from the server to show the class. The professor will stop the video stream at key points and quiz the students about what they've just seen and then tell them what key points to look for in the next clip.

The college of medicine has also used video to capture patient interviews for use in lessons. For example, during the lesson in the Neural Science course about "pain and palliative care," a man who was dying of esophageal cancer was interviewed shortly before he died. The video interview continues to be used in the classroom as part of the curriculum and has been archived for on-demand use.

Digital videos of skilled, experienced doctors doing cadaver dissections are also available to the medical students. They are encouraged to watch these videos immediately before attempting their own dissections. If they have a PDA, they can also refer to the videos as they cut. And since every cadaver is unique, says Jemison, students will often access these dissection videos after they've done their own, so they can generalize among diverse types of bodies.

And since Blackboard is open-architecture software, it allows other software to be used by the Vermont medical college within COMET. For example, instructors are using quiz-building software from Respondus, a secure exam creation tool called Securexam from Software Secure, and a search tool from Learning Objects, all within the Blackboard platform. "We use Blackboard to get a uniformity of user experience," says Jemison, explaining the software's main draw.

Jemison says that the college has "largely standardized" on Windows Media, and as they go forward will be using Windows Media exclusively. But for now, they also support QuickTime, primarily because they have a lot of legacy footage which was created by Mac-using faculty members, the Mac being popular for certain imaging applications, says Jemison. She says that COMET and the use of streaming media has been and will continue to be a cooperative effort among her small staff (including two full-time and one half-time developers) and the school's IS and the AV departments.