THE DERWEB PROJECT - DENTAL EDUCATION RESOURCES ON THE INTERNET

The delivery of dental education, in common with other forms of higher education, has altered considerably over the last decade. The introdu ction of the World Wide Web enabled resources for dental education to be delivered in a new and innovative manner. DERWeb was funded by HEFC -JISC. The primary resource consists of a library of 1600 clinical den tal images each with keywords and a description. Selected images were used to create teaching materials to demonstrate to dental educators w orld wide how the image library could be used by individual institutio ns. Hands-on courses were held to demonstrate the new resource and to evaluate computer skills in the dental community. Since the commenceme nt of the project in September 1994 DERWeb has become one of the leadi ng resources for dental education world wide. The site has been access ed by 79 countries with approximately 107 000 accesses in October 1996 . DERWeb also designs and maintains the British Dental Association pag es together with other professional organisations. Its resources also include dental contact addresses and links to quality dental sites wor ld wide. Further funding has enabled DERWeb to expand further and expl ore new technologies to develop interactivity on the Web. (C) 1997 Els evier Science B.V.