The response was encouraging, not least the expressions of interest in collaboration from as far afield as Australia,  which we hope to build on in near future. In the meantime a major focus is the completion of the student evaluation and tying up some technical loose ends.

This brief video (physio starts 40 secs in) captures the essence.

The polyclinic is publicly accessible though the physiotherapy ward is currently out of bounds while our students complete their induction. If you would like access contact me on r.heaney@uel.ac.uk or IM Maisy Carter in world.

For more background on this project and related SL activities see this earlier post.

UEL HABitat polyclinic

Phase 1 is now complete thanks to sterling efforts by the whole team:

• Gemixin Ltd
• Academics from Herbal medicine and Physiotherapy
• Research assistant
• Learning (and other) technologists
• External evaluator
• Herbal medicine students

This video clip gives a brief glimpse of the various areas of the polyclinic in which two areas (herbal medicine and physiotherapy) now have prototype virtual patients for student use.

Physiotherapy students are presented with a series of patients with respiratory conditions and  interact with the patient, charts and other data to devise a treatment plan. They present the treatment plan via a quiz in the office adjoining the ward. Herbal medicine students are similarly presented with a range of patients in an outpatient clinic setting and come to working diagnsoses having talked to the patient, read their notes, looked at test results etc.

So far this sounds like many other ‘virtual patient’ and healthcare sims that are out there but a distinguishing feature of this one is that the patient cases can be added by academics via a web editor thus bypassing the need for non-SL literate staff to learn new skills. They can concentrate on developing the cases and facilitating students. It is still early days but we are hopeful that this model can be further developed for use in other healthcare areas as well as possibly for other subject areas that lend themselves to the same scenario or problem based approach.

Laboratory and Crime scene house

A further aspect of this phase of development, has been to move the molecular biology laboratory and CSI facilities from the main UEL island to their own buildings on UEL HABitat.

Following on from the initial HEA Bioscience paper ‘The Learning Gains and Student Perceptions of a Second Life Virtual Lab’, the PCR and electrophoresis experiments have been replicated in Flash and a study is currently underway to compare the relative merits of a 3D virtual world platform over a more conventional 2D one for this type of learning activity.

UEL HABitat is publicly accessible via http://slurl.com/secondlife/UEL%20HABitat/166/179/26

To use the polyclinic and the CSI house your avatar needs to join the relevant group. Please contact r.heaney@uel.ac.uk or IM Maisy Carter in world if you would like an invite.  We will also provide access to the web-based  Case editing system on request.

Links to additional presentations, publications:

Olivia Corcoran’s presentation at HEA Forensic subject centre June 2009

ALT-C Sept 2009 short paper: Bioscience and forensic science students get a Second Life®

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