Experiences with e-Learning and Distant Education of Clinical Chemistry at 1st Medical Faculty of Charles University
Abstract
Multimedia and computer based education started at the1st Medical Faculty many years ago, and web-based education and eLearning have been developed since 2000. The educative web portal of our faculty (ISSN 1803-6619) running since 2005 was the first step.
This website (http://portal.lf1.cuni.cz/index-en.php) was intended to provide information about all types of electronic teaching materials produced by the faculty and there are now nearly 500 educational documents. The unique, international project - MEFANET (Medical Faculties NETwork, http://portal.mefanet.cz/index-en.php) was developed to strengthen the cooperation among Czech and Slovak medical faculties using modern ICT.
The primary objective of the MEFANET was to facilitate cooperation among teams from different faculties, and to ensure a horizontal accessibility of electronic teaching tools for both teachers and students. WikiLectures (ISSN 1804-9885 - http://www.wikilectures.eu; Czech version ISSN 1804-6517 - http://www.wikiskripta.eu) has been developed as another tool since 2007 and provide space for a cooperative production and storage of medical teaching materials, which have been created by both teachers and students.
An editorial team has been designed to provide support for authors and control quality and rules. Besides the two existing tools for publication and sharing electronic educational materials within the MEFANET network (e-publishing system and WikiLectures), there is another tool available now: space for production and operation of e-learning courses Moodle-MEFANET (https://moodle.mefanet.cz) providing service for e-learning courses within the frame of Mefanet.
Educational activities developed in our faculty fully correspond with IFCC recommendations, as our team is involved in many IFCC committees and working groups - Working Group on Distance Education, Committee on Education and Curriculum Development, Working Group on Internet & Distance Learning and Committee on Internet and eLearning