Peer Review the Web

Techcrunch has an article about Hypothes.is, a startup that has the goal of providing peer review for informaton on websites.

Hypothes.is will be a distributed, open-source platform for the collaborative evaluation of information. It will enable sentence-level critique of written words combined with a sophisticated yet easy-to-use model of community peer-review. It will work as an overlay on top of any stable content, including news, blogs, scientific articles, books, terms of service, ballot initiatives, legislation and regulations, software code and more-without requiring participation of the underlying site.

To be honest, I'm a little skeptical.    I've seen services that annotate websites and they never seem to catch on (a point that is brought up on the Hypothes.is website).   


However, we might be looking at a potential solution for harmful/misleading drug information on the web.


Have you talked to your students about the quality of drug information found on various websites?

Open Educational Resources

An interesting blog from "Getting Smart" discussing Open Educational Resources and how large LMS providers are participating in this process. Where does your pharmacy school stand on OER?

http://gettingsmart.com/blog/2011/10/has-the-oer-tipping-point-arrived/

RIBA II Healthcare Robot

I'm not sure why Japanese manufacturers think that putting a cute face on a robot makes it any less terrifying when it comes for you...but it actually does seem to work.


The RIBA II Healthcare Robot is featured over at TechCrunch.   I'm pretty sure it can't fill prescriptions.

Using Adobe Connect to Allow AACP Sections and SIGs to Hold Webinars and Virtual Meetings

The TiPEL-SIG sponsored a webinar on "Using Adobe Connect to Allow AACP Sections and SIGs to Hold Webinars and Virtual Meetings" on Monday, October 24.   The presenters were Alan Lee, Keith Christensen, Eric Wombwell and Jeffrey Evans.


Adobe Connect is a web conferencing system that is now available so that SIGs and Sections can hold online business meetings and webinars.


Here is a link to the recording of the webinar and supporting documents.

Sloan Consortium -- Best in Track sessions in Orlando, FL

Sloan Consortium announced "Best-in-Track" sessions for its upcoming 17th Annual International Conference on Online Learning to present the most distinguished educators in the field.

Have you ever attended this conference live or online or any other Sloan-C programs?

http://sloanconsortium.org/news_press/august2011_sloan-c-announces-%E2%80%98best-track%E2%80%99-sessions-its-upcoming-17th-annual-international

Academic Performance in a Pharmacotherapeutics Course Sequence Taught Synchronously on Two Campuses Using Distance Education Technology

Michael Steinberg, PharmD, and Anna K. Morin, PharmD

Objective. To compare the academic performance of campus-based students in a pharmacotherapeutics course with that of students at a distant campus taught via synchronous teleconferencing.

Methods. Examination scores and final course grades for campus-based and distant students completing the case-based pharmacotherapeutics course sequence over a 5-year period were collected and analyzed.

Results. The mean examination scores and final course grades were not significantly different between students on the 2 campuses.

Conclusions. The use of synchronous distance education technology to teach students does not affect students’ academic performance when used in an active-learning, case-based pharmacotherapeutics course.

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2011; 75 (8) Article 150.
 

FDA drafts Mobile Medical Applications document

From TUAW:

According to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the FDA has drafted a document titled Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff - Mobile Medical Applications which is a first pass at attempting some standardization and looking at regulating the data and communication requirements of apps like this (for example, having a glucose monitor that can sync readings to your iOS device).

There's a link on the page to a website where people can leave comments on proposed regulations.

University of California teacher union to block online courses

IT World has a very short piece about the American Federation of Teachers trying to prevent the implementation of online courses that might reduce the demand for teachers.


The piece is not referenced and there's not much "there" there (apologies to Oakland).   But it brings up and interesting question:   Will implementing online courses cost teachers their jobs?

To Record or Not to Record?

There's an editorial in AJPE called To Record or Not Record which has our own Past-Chair Jeff Cain as a co-author.   From the article:

One of the more challenging and controversial questions facing educators and administrators is whether to record classroom lectures. 

Good stuff.

Pharmacy College Revamps Website

When I first saw that headline from The Worcester Telegram my initial reaction was "This is news?"

But a quick trip over to the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences  is worth your time.  They've got a very nice new website.  

I'm jealous.

Turning The iPhone Into A 350x Medical Microscope For Under $50

TechCrunch has a short synopsis and a link to a scientific paper that describes how researchers at UC Davis turned an iPhone into a microscope.

The project is actually quite a simple little hack. They use a 1mm ball lens and attach it to the outside of the iPhone lens array with a rubber sheet and some tape. The little lens technically only offers 5x magnification, but the way it focuses creates a tiny in-focus area that can resolve details down to about 1.5 microns. The field of view is very small and there’s distortion to deal with, but by combining the in-focus areas of several pictures you can get a clear enough image to identify cell types, make counts, or even take spectroscopic readings.

At the end of the article is a link to the original paper on PLoS ONE.

Students and iPads: ACU study shows positive results

TUAW has followed up with Abilene Christian University which has been working to incorporate iPads and iPhones into the classroom.

Thoreau's classroom is in full effect here. In many classes students are interactively building the syllabus, creating the questions and finding the answers. The professors are taking on a new role as "coaches," focusing more on helping students learn to solve problems and answer questions than on rote learning and testing. 

While it sounds like there's more going on than just "everybody gets an iPad", it's an interesting read.

GoodRx: A search engine for prescription prices

There was an earlier post about BidRx, a service which allows patients to submit their prescriptions to a website and have pharmacies make offers as to how much they will charge to fill them.

Now there's another startup called GoodRX which takes a more general approach.  Patients enter the name of the drug and their location.  The site lists the prices offered at various pharmacies in the area and displays the locations on a map.


Again, the question comes up:  Does this kind of service encourage patients to use multiple pharmacies, thus preventing the pharmacist from having the patient's complete medication profile?

Read the story at cnet