Medical Content Searching, Retrieving, and Sharing Over the Internet: Lessons Learned From the mEducator Through a...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education Technology
• Digital Health Humanities
• Information Science

Background:

• The mEducator Best Practice Network (BPN) developed e-learning standards and models for medical education.
• Solutions were created to facilitate discovery, retrieval, sharing, and repurposing of medical content across European institutions.
• Usability testing involved scenario-based evaluations, online questionnaires, and field notes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the mEducator3.0 (MELINA+) system, focusing on its metadata schema, usability, and acceptance.
• To evaluate the metadata schema's suitability for searching, retrieving, and sharing medical content.
• To assess the overall usability and acceptance of the mEducator3.0 system by target users.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive evaluation methodology was applied across four case studies in Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, and Romania.
• 126 participants engaged in scenario-based evaluations using mEducator3.0 for content creation, sharing, and retrieval.
• Data collection included two online questionnaires (36 closed-ended, 2 open-ended questions) and field notes.

Main Results:

• The metadata schema generally supported user needs for content creation, sharing, and retrieval.
• Users encountered challenges in understanding certain metadata fields.
• Difficulties were observed in managing intellectual property rights for repurposed content.

Conclusions:

• The mEducator system shows promise for medical educational content sharing but requires refinement.
• Recommendations focus on improving metadata clarity, content description processes, and intellectual property management.
• Findings are relevant for researchers, medical professionals, and designers in educational technology.