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Copyright 2008, Hippokratio General Hospital of Thessaloniki An e-learning platform for Aerospace Medicine P D Bamidis,1,2 S Konstantinidis,1 C L Papadelis,1,2 E Perantoni,2 C Styliadis,1,2 C Kourtidou-Papadeli,1,2 C Kourtidou-Papadeli,2 and C Pappas1 1Lab of Medical Informatics, Medical School, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece 2Greek Aerospace Medical Association and Space Research The appeal of online education and distance learning as an educational alternative is ever increasing. Bamidis, P.D., Konstantinidis, S., Papadelis, C.L., Perantoni, E., Styliadis, C., Kourtidou-Papadeli, C. & Pappas, C. (2008) An e-learning platform for Aerospace Medicine. Hippokratia Quarterly Medical Journal 12 (1) pp.15-22 Part II: An E-Learning Platform for Aerospace Medicine Aerospace medicine had been defined as an occupational or preventive form of medicine in which the patients are involved in spaceflight. This specialty specifically endeavours to prevent and treat medical problems and disorders which are common among aircrews and frequent flyers. Although it is a medical specialty widely unknown to the general public, constant educational trends force general practitioners to expand their knowledge base and to learn more about topics such as the treatment of pulmonary disorders in aviation situations. Enter e-learning. As aerospace medicine is not a common topic in educational circles, very few educational courses have been developed which teachers and instructors can use and expand for their courses. The authors of this article, P.D. Bamidis, S. Konstantinidis and others from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, The Greek Aerospace Medical Association and the Hippokratio General Hospital of Thessaloniki present a SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) compliant course that uses the concepts of modern social web technologies and modern advances in educational technology such as 3D Virtual environments. (cont. in comments)

Hi Stu, I am glad that you have explained your choice of the article on the use of an e-learning platform in aerospace medicine for the critical review. I have to admit that I found the article a bit technical, even though the authors did a good job in providing a detailed description of the SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model) concept and the process of creating the SCORM editor to develop a course package. As the authors highlighted, the main benefit of using the SCORM editor in the described course design is that the course can then be transferred to any Learning Management System, while at the same time remain credible, up-to-date and reusable. As I am not familiar with the SCORM concept at all I wish the authors would have provided some overview of how and whether the concept of SCORM and the SCORM editor could be used in designing online courses in other areas of education, and not just limit their literature review to medical education. Personally, I did not find the article to be of any practical value for my teaching practice. However the article allowed me to gain better understanding of how e-learning can be effectively applied in teaching of a course in a very specific area, such as aviation technology, where the instructors need to be qualified to cover a wide range of topics, from engineering, management to education and regulations. Thanks for sharing an article on such specific topic and for another well-developed critical review of the paper. Reference: Bamidis, P.D., Konstantinidis, S., Papadelis, C.L., Perantoni, E., Styliadis, C., Kourtidou-Papadeli, C. & Pappas, C. (2008) An e-learning platform for Aerospace Medicine. Hippokratia Quarterly Medical Journal 12 (1) pp.15-22

Hey Stu, I hope all is well in your new home. Interesting article. There is something to be said about the ability to have some flexibility in how and where you use online course content. The internet in general has been a bit of a wild west in the past. In the beginning, it was really only good for direct communications between users. Search engines really helped give it some structure that could be organized and searched, and now standardized coding practices like HTML 5 and SCROM are intent on structuring the web even more. Your description of SCROM prompts me to think about what is going on with the development of the Web 3.0 (semantic web) where metadata is used to give meaning to displayable content, ontologies allow computers to understand that meaning, and software agents use that data to find logical solutions for tasks performed by a users. I must admit that I am quite interested in topics like SCROM and the semantic web. They represent the future of the internet and how it will impact our lives, especially in education. I did a quick search of SCROM on good old wikipedia, and the article suggested that the SCROM allows for a number of learning paths of students and ensures the acceptability of his or her test scores. I think this sort of tailoring of educational environments to meet a learners needs will raise the quality of education while making a teachers job easier. I am speculating here though. Have a great day. Here is a link to an accessible article on the semantic web. Take a look if you are interested. It is Morris, R.D., (2011). Web 3.0: Implications for online learning. Tech Trends. 55(1). 42-46. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/xv0j138255320150/.

Catherine Anne Schmidt-Jones University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne, USA There have been numerous calls for research that demonstrates how open education resources (OERs) are actually being used. This case study sought to shed light on the users of a well-visited set of modular music-education materials published at Connexions. Schmidt-Jones, C.A., (2012). An Open Educational Resource Supports a Diversity of Inquiry-Based Learning. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 13(1) With the modern advances and recent evolution of e-learning it seems that the resources available for online learning and blended learning programs are countless, and growing. At times it seems difficult to keep track of which available resources are actually being used, and of those which are, which ones are most effective? Catherine-Anne Schmidt-Jones, from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne has conducted a case study based on a music education educational system comprised of numerous tools and modules, published at Connexions. The respondents included instructors, students, non-student learners and administrators/directors. The respondents varied in gender and age as well as their motivation for learning: self-directed or for other motivational reasons. According to the author, the study was done with the intent of explaining and understanding the way in which open education resources (OERs) are being used in real life situations. Open educational resources are digital resources which can be used and reused by teachers and students, often made available free through open licenses. The author suggests that many critics of open educational tools are demanding some form of quantitative proof and empirical data that these tools can actually improve educational quality. The author forms her case study on 103 music-education modules published at Connexions ( http://cnx.org

Hi Stu, I enjoyed reading your critical review of the article by Schmidt-Jones C. (2012). I found the article itself quite interesting, especially the comparative analysis provided by the author on the distribution of users of the OERs (Open Education Resources) of the OpenCourseWare from the MIT and the online repository and management system for musical educational material of Connexions. In this comparative analysis, the author proved once again that the main function of OERs is for just-in-time, inquiry-based learning. However, as you mentioned Stu, it would be more valuable to show how the OERs are used by individual learners and how the OERs can improve the quality of education. Also, I would be curious to see the online survey applied by the author, to help me better understand the benefits and limitations of the conducted research. The research results showed that the OERs are more frequently used by students and not teachers. However, I think that the OERs can also serve as a great tool for novice teachers to learn from the examples of their colleagues on how to scaffold the learning activities and effectively create online modules of courses. The feedback on the materials posted on the OERs can also help educators to constantly improve their materials as well as to learn from the examples of their colleagues. However, as the role of OER is becoming mainly a learning resource, I think that it is important for educators and administrators to start incorporating the OERs in the design of learner-centered models in education and to use OERs for just-in-time inquiry based learning and to meet the concrete learning outcomes. Thanks again for your thorough critical review of the article Stu!

Hello Again, I came across Connections, the database of OERs mentioned in this study while watching a TED talk by Richard Baraniuk (2006), the founder of Connections. I found both the talk and your review of the article interesting. I think in the end this article is more about the quality of the music modules described in the paper and less on the effectiveness of OER's in general. You mention your disappointment that the article does not support the claim the OERs are effective educational tools. I think any article making such a claim would fail due to the variations in the modules and resources. When it comes down to brass tacks, OERs are like any other resources available to teachers. There are variations in the type and quality, and thus, their usefulness to teachers also varies. What redeems OER is the fact that anyone is free to use them in any way they see fit. Richard Baraniuk focus on this point in his talk. He makes use of Apple's advertising campaign slogan, "create, rip, mix, and burn" to extoll the power of OERs. Anyone can create an OER that can be used by anyone around the world for free. Anyone can rip that OER and mix it to suit their specific needs. Anyone can burn a copy of that resource in different ways, so they can use it in many different times and contexts. The only price is crediting the creators of the resources you use. Baraniuk argues that collections of OERs like Connections empower people from many different cultures and socio-economic status. I see his point, but there is still the problem of quality. I took a look around connections and found some modules to be good while others were not good at all. Honestly, I did not see anything I would call great. This makes me wonder if OERs will ever achieve the same quality level as the copy written resources that cost schools quite a bit of money. OERs may somewhat level the playing field between the haves and the have nots, but not by a great degree. Not yet anyway. Baraniuk, R. (2006).