(1304) MAPPING AN INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL SCHOOL CURRICULUM: EFFECTIVE USE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY TO IMPROVE A DISTRIBUTED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

摘要

Medical schools and other health professional training programs must regularly meet bothaccreditation and academic standards, a mandate which has led to the development of an e-contentmanagement process in medical education called curriculum mapping. As scientific content constantlyexpands, often the curriculum that is currently taught is different from the originally developedmaterials and based on out-dated goals and standards. Through the process of curriculum mapping,accreditors, administrators, faculty, and students can easily see how current topics align with updatedinstitutional, professional, and international standards.American University of the Caribbean (AUC) School of Medicine, a four-year international medicalschool based in Sint Maarten with clinical sites distributed across the United States (US), Canada andthe United Kingdom (UK), has recently undertaken its first e-curriculum mapping project using the IliosCurriculum Management System (Ilios) originally developed by the University of California SanFrancisco. An experienced team of medical educators and technology specialists engaged faculty,recent graduates, and current students in the mapping process via the medical school's CurriculumCommittee. In the first stage, AUC aligned their institutional objectives with gold standards, known ascompetencies, which were developed by the US-based Accreditation Council of Graduate MedicalEducation (ACGME). The multidisciplinary team then systematically mapped ACGME competencies toAUC objectives, from program objectives all the way down to course and individual session objectives.With access to the entire curriculum, faculty can now more easily reaffirm prerequisites, identify whichtopics are taught and reinforced, and identify gaps and redundancies at the program, course, andsession levels. In the next stage, student assessment and performance will be mapped to both theobjectives and competencies.The Ilios Curriculum Management System is an essential component of this knowledge managementinitiative. Ilios allows users to search and display all activities for any course in the selected academicyear and school. Ilios can robustly track and manage educational competency domains, as well asspecific course- and session-level learning objectives. Documentation of changes and enhancements,increased communication and transparency, and opportunities for faculty development are additionalbenefits of curriculum mapping.AUC is using Ilios as a key technological and educational solution for curriculum mapping to addressthe needs of external accreditors, faculty and students. Over the course of one year, Ilios has allowedAUC leaders to clearly articulate the existing curriculum, which then allows for longer-term tracking offuture changes and enhancements. AUC's curriculum map now serves as a centralized locationwhere faculty and students, who are geographically distributed on an island campus and clinical sitesacross two continents, can search and identify where and when specific topics are taught as well aseasily locate teaching materials and learning resources.Iterative e-curriculum mapping directly supports students in achieving successful mastery of complexeducational topics covered throughout their four-year medical education.