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The KnowledgeMap project: development of a concept-based medical school curriculum database
Joshua C Denny1, Plomarz R Irani, Firas H Wehbe
1Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA.
AMIA ... Annual Symposium Proceedings. AMIA Symposium
|January 20, 2004
Summary
The KnowledgeMap (KM) system, a concept-based medical curriculum database, was implemented in a medical school. Students and faculty utilized KM for document access and management, indicating its value in medical education.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education Technology
- Information Science in Medicine
Background:
- Medical school curricula generate extensive documentation.
- Efficiently accessing and managing these documents is crucial for students and faculty.
- Existing systems may lack concept-based search capabilities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To describe the design and implementation of the KnowledgeMap (KM) system.
- To evaluate the initial usage and impact of KM in a medical school setting.
Main Methods:
- Development of the KM system, an online, concept-based database for medical school curriculum documents.
- Utilized the KM concept indexer for mapping full-text documents and queries to the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS).
- Reported on the first seven months of KM implementation and usage.
Main Results:
- Students across all four medical school classes actively used KM for searching and browsing documents, despite its limited emphasis in specific courses.
- All faculty involved in piloting courses utilized KM for uploading and managing lecture documents.
- Expansion plans include transitioning eight additional courses to KM.
Conclusions:
- The KnowledgeMap system demonstrates utility and adoption by both students and faculty in a medical school curriculum.
- Concept-based indexing facilitates effective document retrieval and management.
- KM shows potential for broader integration into medical education.