THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTEGRATED ONLINE HEALTH-EDUCATION SYSTEM ATRMIT

The Faculty of Biomedical and Health Sciences at RMIT has been develop ing an on-line health education system using a systems thinking approa ch, to create a learning environment whose basis is supported by Infor mation Technology (IT). The centre-piece of this system is the Faculty Learning Centre, which has been created: both in space and layout, to promote collaborative learning between the students, so that the educ ator is physically assimilated with the student body. This facility is supplemented by the Faculty WWW server, which has been the main vehic le for course material dissemination to students. To ensure an effecti ve on-line teaching environment, the position of an on-line facilitato r has been created, whose responsibilities include both the continual evaluation of the system and the implementation of appropriate system changes. Aspects have included the production of a staff development t raining program and extensive user documentation. This paper discusses the systems thinking approach used to implement this integrated on-li ne system, and the establishment of explicit educational rationales in the use of IT to support learning strategies. Some examples of the on -line educational programs are also presented. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scien ce Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.