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Distance Learning for Health Workshop: Public Health Online Courses - Jessica Sheringham, People's Uni
1. Internet based public health capacity
building for developing countries:
People's Open Access Education
Initiative
Richard Heller, Gracia Fellmeth, Terence Harrison
Steve Fabricant & Jessica Sheringham
2. Context: Ideas behind the Peoples-uni
• Develop public health capacity in low income countries
• Keep costs very low using
•open educational resources
•open source delivery mechanisms
•volunteers
• Position outside (but in collaboration with) traditional
university system
3. 1 2 3 4
Context: History of Peoples-uni
2006 2007
URL
created
Module
pilot
Charity
status
2008
1st
semester
20102009
6. Modules
Foundation Sciences
Biostatistics
Introduction to Epidemiology
Evidence Based Practice
Health economics
Inequalities and SDH
Public Health concepts for
policy makers (F+S)
Evaluation of Interventions
Public Health Ethics
Public Health Problems
Communicable diseases
Disaster management &
emergency planning
HIV/AIDS
Maternal Mortality
Preventing child mortality
Public Health nutrition
Patient safety
Non-Communicable Disease:
Diabetes & CVD
7. Developing a module – selecting
open educational resources
1. Good search engines
Health Sciences Online ( http://hso.info)
Open Courseware Consortium ( http://www.ocwconsortium.org/)
OER Commons ( http://www.oercommons.org/)
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Opencourseware
(http://ocw.jhsph.edu/topics.cfm)
Tufts Opencourseware ( http://ocw.tufts.edu/)
Global Health elearning centre ( http://www.infoforhealth.org/elearning/)
2. Our own appraisal
3. Student comments
8. Case study: Evidence Based
Practice
Module follows Peoples-Uni template:
• 5 topics (2 weeks each)
• Online facilitation by volunteer tutors following
facilitators guide
• Automated application and enrolment process
http://courses.peoples-
uni.org/course/applications.php
• MCQs available during module
• Assessed assignment after module
• Automated records & creation of academic
transcripts
13. Facilitating on People’s Uni:
experiences and challenges
• Learning from vastly diverse student experiences &
cultures
– Students also have wide range of abilities: pitching it right
• Maintaining quantity and quality of discussion
throughout entire module
– Stimulating postings (dealing with online ‘silences’!)
– Tried realtime chat, but timezones & connectivity problems
• Maximising potential of the technology, distance
learning ourselves…whilst appreciating limitations
faced by our students:
– Access to online materials
– Limited bandwidth, computer access
– Extremely challenging day jobs
15. Student experience: developments
• Separate CPD and academic award streams
• Upgrade to Masters in Public Health to start
semester 1 2011
• More structure to resources and discussions
• Improve information to create realistic expectations
among the students
• Charge fees as condition of enrolment ($50 US per
module charged)
16. Peoples-uni and Partnerships
• Collaboration and partnerships essential
• Local relevance of education
• Local credibility
• Add value not compete
• Institutional
• Double badge awards
• Internet access centres
• Individual
• Course module developers
• On-line facilitators
• Technical support
17. Finally
Peoples-uni’s 'social model' approach can
•contribute to Public Health capacity-building in low/middle-
income countries
• work in other academic areas
• All collaboration welcome, please join in or make suggestions:
•Individuals: developing modules, facilitators, technical
support
•Institutions: jointly develop & deliver courses of mutual
interest
• More information:
•http://peoples-uni.org
•rfheller@peoples-uni.org
•jsheringham2004@yahoo.co.uk
Editor's Notes
limit each to 12 minutes
First, information on the context in which your programme was developed:
the identified health needs that the programme was designed to address;
the target audience;
the programme development and implementation process;
an overview of what it has achieved to date.
Say…
~ 100 active volunteers, working as:
Trustees
International advisory group
QA, IT, Operations groups
Course delivery & development teams
Education officers
Students – very yet variably experienced in many fields
From early semester
Educational experience
Medical degree 46
Other Health degree 34
Other non-health degree 30
No degree 7
Postgraduate degree (in addition to any above) 25
Current occupation*
Public Health worker 48
Mainly clinician 56
Student 4
Academic 7
(*2 no answer)
Illustrates 2 things –
1. great to track participation/involvement in a way more difficult than face-face teaching
2. BUT can see a very typical pattern here: more viewing than participating, involvement drops off as module progresses.
Note: this is not universal and sometimes very good reasons for time away from P-Uni (students have demanding day jobs, examples of 1-2 dealing with severe humanitarian emergencies during the course), but challenge for facilitators
