Dean's Message: e-Learning in the Faculty of Medicine

Within our Faculty and throughout the health professions, eLearning has been a topic of hot discussion. It offers us a tremendous opportunity to better align our curricula with how our students want to learn, and to reach a broader global audience. Yet, new learning technologies are rapidly developing and their educational efficacy needs to be rigorously evaluated. Many of our peer medical schools and other areas at the University of Toronto are offering new eLearning modules, and we now have the opportunity to organize and plan for the future.

We can take pride in the pockets of eLearning excellence throughout the Faculty, and in the eLearning modules we have created. From eDOT, the Electronic Direct Observation Tool, to EMRaD, the Emergency Medicine Radiology Database, to our very popular online course in basic human physiology, members of our Faculty are deeply invested in eLearning. In order to maintain our Faculty’s position as a leader in eLearning (i.e., teaching, learning and scholarship) across the education continuum, we now need to move forward with a clear strategy for eLearning, so we can leverage the good work we have done and support the work we need to undertake.

To these ends, the Faculty is striking an eLearning Task Force co-chaired by Professors Dimitri Anastakis, Vice Dean of Continuing Professional Development and Jay Rosenfield, Vice Dean of Undergraduate Medical Professions Education. The Task Force will submit a progress report in April and file a formal report in June.

Part of the challenge in harnessing the value of eLearning is understanding what it entails.  eLearning encompasses a large breadth of technologies and applications, and so the Task Force will first define eLearning for our Faculty and learners.  It will then complete an inventory of eLearning efforts and resources across the Faculty. The Task Force will also identify opportunities for partnership with University eLearning initiatives. The Task Force will conduct an environmental scan of other global leaders in this area. With this information in hand, the Task Force will identify the gaps between where we are today, and where we need to be over the next decade and beyond.

Through the recommendations of the Task Force, we will further position the Faculty as a leader in eLearning, and we will lay the foundations to ensure we have the competencies and infrastructure to provide the best education for the learners of today and tomorrow.

Catharine Whiteside
Dean, Faculty of Medicine, and Vice Provost, Relations with Health Care Institutions