Design of Virtual Environment for Medical E-Learning

A. M. Riad, Hazem El-Bakry and Samir M. Abd El-razek

Faculty of Computer and Information, Sciences, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt

Corresponding author Emaill: helbakry20@yahoo.com

Accepted 03 September 2012

Abstract

This paper introduces a new design for virtual medical environment. The aim is to allow medicine students practice problem-based learning. This is done by simulating a medical consultation, using the current pedagogical methods based on clinical cases and integrating web technology methods. The environment is composed of a set of cooperative platform independent tools that allows students to simulate a consultation at distance on a virtual patient that can be designed easily by the teacher. Using multimedia data exchange, the simulation is more realistic than a face-to-face simulation. Information can be shared between students and teacher in multimedia various forms like text, audio, video, and whiteboard. The concept of case-based learning and the need for virtual environment is presented to support this methodology of learning. In the previous work (Samir et al., 2010), the project was applied at the faculty of medicine in Mansoura University. Here, the design is applied for Egyptian Universities Virtual Environment System (EUVES), a virtual environment for medical e-learning for all medicine students in the Egyptian universities. The system is logically designed to simulate case-based learning methodology, and technically designed upon MedBiquitous specifications for virtual patient.

Keywords: E-learning; Virtual Environment; Virtual Patient; Medical Training; Case-Based Learning (CBL).