MEDICAL PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING SUPPORTED BY INTRANET TECHNOLOGY - A NATURAL STUDENT CENTERED APPROACH

In response to the explosion in medical information, there have been c onsiderable recent changes in medical curriculum development. The move to problem based learning (PBL) is, in part, a result of these change s. The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney has exploited a WWW based intranet for the development, delivery, management and eval uation of it's problem based, graduate medical program (GMP). This sys tem has been employed to develop the 72 medical problems that contribu te to the first two years of the GMP. The activities of more than 400 members of the faculty have been coordinated using the intranet to dev elop the wide range of resources to support learning in the program. D aily management of the curriculum is also enabled using Web site posti ng of bulletins, e-mail and ongoing development of technology training . Coupled with the PBL problems is a formative assessment system that provides questions and feedback that cover the whole range of learning topics. Part of the student and staff evaluation is supported both in formally and formally through the use of a 'Feedback' button on each w eb page and web delivered structured formal evaluations, respectively. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.