OER1166d Short Paper (Part of Symposium OER1166) pptx

Pathways for open resource sharing through convergence in healthcare education (PORSCHE)

Lindsay Wood, Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine, Newcastle University
Kate Lomax, NHS eLearning Repository
Suzanne Hardy, Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine, Newcastle University
Megan Quentin-Baxter, Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine, Newcastle University
Richard Osborn, The London Deanery

Conference Theme: Collaboration and communities

Abstract: PORSCHE envisages seamless access to academic and clinical educational resources for healthcare staff and students (who train extensively in practice), however significant technological and cultural barriers to sharing educational resources currently exist. PORSCHE is dedicated primarily to resolving technical problems, while ACTOR and digital professionalism address cultural change.
As a healthcare provider the NHS is also one of the biggest education providers in the world, and has invested in eLearning. The NHS eLearning Repository (NeLR) is the leading repository for healthcare educational resources and is an extensible search and discover platform, while JorumOpen is a national learning repository for further and higher education. Ideally these should provide a one-stop shop for those searching from either community in order to increase discoverability of resources.
Access to NHS eLearning is limited by issues with data security and patient consent. Staff and students in HEIs have limited access to patient information and NHS eLearning, and those in NHS/practice settings may have limited internet access (e.g. to whitelisted URLs only). The N3 JANET gateway seamlessly links Janet and NHSNet, but must be implemented at a local level1, and has not yet been rolled out nationally. NHSNet primarily uses Athens (not OpenAthens) authentication, and HEIs use federated access management to provide access to services, meaning that NHS staff cannot upload resources to JorumOpen, and academic staff can neither download from nor upload to NeLR. This prevents effective cross-searching and upload of resources, and may also affect downloads as many Trusts only allow downloads to encrypted memory sticks (which are often difficult to obtain).
The project aims to showcase a substantial number of OER in eLearning healthcare education; establish the basis for a long term national partnership between the NHS and academia by sharing of appropriately licensed content between JorumOpen and the NeLR; achieve widespread uptake of good practice from UKOER phase 1 and NHS eLearning Readiness toolkits3; promote debate over consent issues2; and establish the value of the services in enhancing the student experience in clinical placement settings.

Keywords: healthcare; nursing; medicine; dentistry; elearning; hei; nhs; nhsnet; janet; n3; repositories; educational resources; resources; consent; work-based learning; authentication; authorization; access; ukoer

 References:

1 The NHS-HE connectivity project. Available at: www.nhs-he.org.uk/n3-janet-gateway.html accessed November 2010.

3 NHS eLearning Readiness Toolkit. NHS Connecting for Health. Available from www.elearningreadiness.org accessed November 2010.