Register now for the 2013 BEST Network Launch. The Launch will take place on the 18th October 2013 at the Woodward Conference Centre, University of Melbourne.

The Launch will showcase the BEST Network’s collection of digitised biomedical teaching resources, including:

• Medical Image Bank – a cloud-based repository of high-resolution biomedical images. 
• Virtual Microscopy – teach histology and histopathology using engaging and personalised learning experiences.
• Casemaker – create and share case-based lessons for teaching investigative decision-based processes.
• Virtual Laboratories – rich, interactive experiences great for cost effective and risk free teaching of complex lab techniques, online.
• Adaptive Learning – technology that includes powerful analytics giving you insight into students’ learning behaviour powered by Smart Sparrow’s Adaptive eLearning Platform.

These resources are currently freely available.

Click here to register.

The most visionary of the activities undertaken by the BEST Network is the creation of the BEST Network image bank; a publicly available bank of images for use in biomedical education. Building an online bank of medical images is by no means a new idea, but the BEST Network Image Bank is unique in that images are sourced from a range of public and private users across a range of biomedical disciplines and placed on an interactive platform to allow easy access and use. The advantages of creating a lively, collective resource for biomedical education are clear and many. The Image Bank gets medical images out of people’s bottom drawers and converts them from static images into dynamic, engaging resources for Australian educators and their students.

The highly public and wiki-like nature of the Image Bank raises valid questions from BEST Network partners. The most common concern from our stakeholders is the issue of copyright. The copyright laws that surround digital images are a hotly debated and dense topic and many feel they lose all control of their images once they are online. The BEST Network is working hard with appropriate experts to create a strong legal structure to support the Image Bank and protect the ownership rights of our users. In particular, the BEST Network will have in place a system that protects and publicly acknowledges ownership. This means that contributed images will be protected under the BEST Network’s copyright agreement and more practically, will make accurately referencing the image source a much easier task for other medical educators using the images.

Another important issue raised by the public nature of the Image Bank is the credibility of its content. The Image Bank enables users to attach metadata to their images, including descriptions of the image, case history and body structure. While this functionality is of great value to Image Bank users, the BEST Network also recognises the importance of maintaining accuracy in the widely sourced information available on the Image Bank. The Image Bank is monitored by a number of moderators, who are subject matter experts in relevant fields and able to approve the content uploaded on the Image Bank. Users can report any content on the Image Bank they believe may be inaccurate. Furthermore, the BEST Network is committed to ensuring the transparency of image ownership. The owner/author of all contributions made to the Image Bank will be highly visible, making it easy for users to link the content they wish to use to the source. Users can source images and compare notes with content uploaded straight from a large number of academics in biomedical education.

There are both passive and active members in all online communities and we understand that a percentage of Image Bank members will only be interested in using already contributed content. However there are advantages to being an active contributor. As an educator, you most likely already have an amazing collection of images that you love to teach with, and the Image Bank has a series of tools designed to enhance the educational value of medical images and bring your content to life. These include an industry-standard viewer and advanced annotation capabilities that allow you to share and store annotations with your colleagues and students. The Image Bank saves users costs and time, by offering free storage and fast access to your regularly used images and content.

The Image Bank is also part of a movement to share quality information online with the public and across institutions, a concept shown to be hugely successful with models such as MOOCS. The Image Bank takes this a step further with its social dimension, which allows you to connect with other users via discussion boards and collaborative tools. It is certainly a big cultural change, but sharing your knowledge, expertise and resources with a broader audience is a great contribution towards enhancing the quality of education in your field and in your classroom.

Please let us know if you have any questions, thoughts or feedback here. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

The BEST Network is very fortunate to have some of the most highly qualified academics and health professionals in Australia assisting in the design and build of the Image Bank.

If you would like to make any suggestions, let us know what aspects of the Image Bank sound good or not so good, or if you would like to get involved, please contact us here. We will be in touch!

We have started the process of uploading images onto the Image Bank server. If you have a collection of images you would like to share on the Image Bank please get in touch with Stephanie Dowdell – s.dowdell@unsw.edu.au. Stephanie will be delighted to hear from you.

The BEST Network is currently in the process of building the BEST Network portal. The portal will offer an exciting collection of online content for biomedical education, designed by academics from UNSW, JCU, University of Melbourne and University of Queensland. The content is free to all Australian educators and will cover a range of subject areas across the biomedical sciences.

The BEST Network will be announcing the launch of the BEST Network portal in the coming months. If you would like free access to the BEST Network platform to design an Adaptive Tutorial for use in your classroom and classrooms across Australia – please contact us here.

The BEST Network project has just turned one! In its first year the project has successfully completed 3 Deployment Trials at the Museum of Human Disease, UNSW and Melbourne University, established the Partner Project Scheme and made great progress on the development of the Australian Medical Image Bank. The project team has also been delighted to see the wide-ranging collection of Virtual Labs and Adaptive Tutorials being built as part of the BEST Network pool of resources. We would like to thank all the academics at our partner universities who have participated in the BEST Network community and contributed to such a fruitful first year!

If you haven’t logged onto the Smart Sparrow Platform in a while, you will find an easy-to-navigate new look, complete with in-built help documentation to assist you in finding your way around the Platform. If you would like an account, now is the time to take advantage of the free access currently available to all BEST Network partner universities. Get in touch with the BEST Network project team to organise your free log-in or for more information about training on the Platform and the BEST Network’s range of free online content.

The project is set to launch into its second year with a series of new Deployment Trials commencing at the University of Queensland, James Cook University and UNSW and a number of exciting new technology developments.  Follow the links to read more news from the BEST Network, including the Partner Project Scheme, the Australian Medical Image Bank Planning Day and Melbourne University’s trial of Virtual Slides.

Last month saw the announcement of project submissions selected to receive funding in the BEST Network Partner Project Scheme. Each of the BEST Network partner universities were successful in receiving funding for a Partner Project. The Partner Projects will develop a range of online content across a number of areas including anatomy, micro-biology, genetics, physiology and pathology. The Adaptive Tutorials and other content built by the projects will be available to BEST partners as part of the BEST Network pool of resources. For a full list of the successful projects and the detailed project submissions, please see the Partner Project Forum.

The BEST Network project team hosted the Australian Medical Image Bank Planning day at UNSW on 2^nd May 2013. The day saw representatives from UNSW, UoM and JCU joined by key stakeholders from the South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service (SESIAHS) and the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) to discuss the vision and goals for the Image Bank project. The day was highly successful in designing key areas of the Image Bank development, including implementation, usability, deployment and sustainability. Over the past two months much progress has been made, particularly in securing content, developing the structure of the descriptive data and planning for the technical development. More updates on the progress of the Australian Medical Image Bank will be posted soon. If you would like to be involved in the Image Bank project, please contact the BEST Network project team.

The BEST Network Project is pleased to announce the successful completion of Deployment Trial 5 at the University of Melbourne. The University of Melbourne Trial, led by academic Dr Angela Barbour, demonstrated the BEST Network’s capacity to access Virtual Slides from the Australia Medical Image Bank’s server. During the Trial over 300 first year graduate medicine students studying pathology accessed the slides in class on a weekly basis. Virtual Slides accessed via the Image Bank’s server are an exciting piece of technology and will be a highly valuable resource for BEST Network partners to use in class. Development of the Image Bank will remain a key activity in the BEST Network project.

Last week the Museum of Human Disease, UNSW ran an ‘Adaptive Tutorial for Science Teachers’ workshop. High school science teachers worked together on the NBN BEST Network Platform to create adaptive tutorials featuring adaptive feedback, custom ‘trap states’ and videos and images. The participants were delighted to see how easy it was to create state-of-the-art eLearning resources on the platform and are now working together to create an HSC Biology Adaptive Tutorial. The  BEST Network team is looking forward to seeing the end result of the teachers’ collaboration, in what is an exciting step for the NBN BEST Network project.