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Department of Medicine, University of Toronto
Biomedical Communications Graduate Program,
Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto
Educational Information Technology (EIT)
Summer Student Program Award 2010
Request for Applications
Introduction Educational information technology (EIT) has been identified as one of the areas of priority in the current strategic plan for the Department of Medicine at University of Toronto. Furthermore, with the expansion of enrollment and decentralization of teaching at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, there is a much greater need for developing online educational software to enable asynchronous distant learning. This need is further magnified by limitations on postgraduate trainees’ availability to centralized teaching sessions, due to recent changes in resident work hours. In addition, there are innovative continuing educational IT projects that are not well supported. Although there are a number of faculty members who are interested in developing medical educational software to assist them in teaching their subject areas, there is currently no structured support for these faculty members in the Faculty of Medicine. In addition, the current summer student programs at the University of Toronto teaching hospitals do not support educational software development. We put together a successful Educational Information Technology (EIT) Summer Student Program in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. Thus far, 25 project teams were supported and participated in the weekly seminars during the last 4 summers. A web portal was created to coordinate the program and to showcase the web-based e-learning tools developed. This year we have again the support and collaboration with the Biomedical Communications (BMC) program at University of Toronto to help us with student recruitment and seminar presentations. To view the EIT website for 2006 to 2009, the program and the projects, you can visit: www.utorontoeit.com Objectives The objectives of the University of Toronto Department of Medicine Educational IT Summer Student Program are to: - Combine the faculty content experts and the medical or undergraduate students who have technical know-how to develop the next-generation medical educational software.
- Foster a community of faculty members and students who will lead the future medical educational software development at the medical faculty.
- Provide a framework of educational software design and evaluation through a series of weekly seminars during the summer program.
- Create a portal at the Department of Medicine website to feature the educational software projects developed and make them available online for use at University of Toronto and other medical schools potentially.
Summer Program Project Outline Faculty members of the Department of Medicine are invited to submit medical educational software project proposals to be considered for support. We will also advertise this program to the first year graduate students in Biomedical Communications for their potential participation. We are particularly interested in recruiting students who have either experience or an interest in developing educational software. We will match faculty members with students possessing the appropriate programming and development skills. Each of the projects will be assessed based on its potential impact in improving the current educational program, scope, feasibility, integration with current teaching program, and the planned evaluation process. Preference will be given to web-based courseware where the final product can be shared online. We will establish a web portal at the Department of Medicine website to showcase the final projects and provide sharing with potential users from other medical schools. The participating faculty members and the students will be required to attend one-hour weekly seminars during the period of the summer student program between June and August 2010. The weekly seminars will cover principles that are important to educational software development, such as: 1) basic educational courseware design principles; 2) user interface design principles; 3) software development process; and 4) educational software evaluation. We will invite local and external guest speakers to share their educational software development and evaluation experience. This year we will open the lectures to members of Department of Medicine who are interested in learning more about educational software development. In addition, the participants will be required to present their work at different stages of development for evaluation and feedback by the participants. Future Development Courseware developed under this program can be submitted to international educational software meetings, such as the IAMSE conference for abstract and electronic demonstration; the MedEdPortal (www.aamc.org/mededportal), or Health Education Assets Project (HEAL) Project (http://www.healcentral.org/) for academic recognition. Eligibility Students must be enrolled full time at University of Toronto in an EIT-related program (ie Computer Science, Engineering, Medicine, Biomedical Communications) at the time the application is submitted. They must agree to participate in the project on a full-time basis, and not to terminate their position prior to the stipulated end date. Supervisors must hold an academic staff appointment in the Department of Medicine at one of the University of Toronto teaching hospitals or institutions. A limit of one student may be sponsored per supervisor and each supervisor can only apply once to this year’s competition. Projects that were supported by this program in previous years are eligible for this year’s application. Supervisors are reminded that Hospital policy prohibits the appointment of a student who would report directly to a close relative (note that this refers to a hospital policy). Support The student will receive funding for 10 consecutive weeks, from 15 June to 31 August 2010. - Successful applicants will receive $2,000.00 support from the Educational Information Technology (EIT) Summer Student Program
- The Program will also provide $500 for software and hardware purchase.
- The supervisor must agree to provide additional support, in the amount of at least $2,000.00.
Please note: The Educational Information Technology Summer Student Award cannot be held simultaneously with any other Summer Student Awards. Application - The application form must be signed and completed in full by both the student and supervisor.
- All sections must be completed. Incomplete or improperly prepared application forms may disqualify a student from the competition.
- If you do not have a student in mind already, just leave out the student section for now, we will work with you to find and match with one that fits your project.
Call for applications will be sent out to the potential applicants by mid-May. Deadline for receipt of application is 5 June 2010. Notification of successful awards will be made in writing to the investigators by the 10 June 2010. Applications will be judged acceptable if the student meets the eligibility criteria and the sponsoring staff member demonstrates that he/she can provide a suitable project for the student, which will be carried out in a well-supervised environment. It is the supervisor’s responsibility to ensure office space is available to support the student project. If the number of applications exceeds the number that can be supported by the funds allocated to this program, studentships will be awarded on merit based on an independent assessment of the research project description and the student qualifications as submitted in this application.
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