My ETEC565A e-portfolio

Moodle Proposal

Background

The Department of Health & Wellness (DHW) funded the Adoption Initiative which was completed on March 31, 2013.  The 3 year program signed 150 new physicians, excluding administrative staff and other health care professionals onto the Government supported electronic medical records (EMR) application called Nightingale on Demand (NoD).  The additional users increased the total number of users in Nova Scotia to 2,500 and despite the absence of the Adoption Initiative funding, it is expected that the number of users will continue to gradually increase.  Currently, the NoD basic training is delivered by the vendor, while the Peer Network provides continued support after implementation, along with the Health Information Technology Services (HITS) helpdesk support.

The adoption of an EMR into a clinic is an evolutionary process where clinics require continual education and support to help them optimize their EMR usage.  The Peer Network provides the continual education and support to the clinics by using experienced clinical and administrative users to hold community events, workshops and peer to peer face to face education, which is in line with the Canada Health Infoway mandate to “sustain and accelerate clinical engagement” (Infoway, para. 1) .

To facilitate ongoing support and learning, I would like to propose that PHIM implement the open source Learning Management System (LMS), Moodle which will be managed by the Peer Network team (Moodle, para. 1). Currently, we have a manual process delivering course materials and collaborating with peer leaders on content by email.  Moodle will make all materials accessible to our users across the province, promote discussion through forums and notification of events.  The accessibility by all users will supplement vendor training with scenario based learning modules, alert users of best practices or changes with the application and promote peer support and learning.

Rationale for Moodle

Although the DHW already has a provincially endorsed LMS, called Medworxx, it does not meet the needs of our users.  Medworxx is the LMS hosted and supported by HITS but it is difficult to navigate and does not provide the critical discussion functionality that Moodle offers to promote a Community of Practice (Gray, 2004).

In recent discussion with HITS, they have stated that they do not have the staff to support the 2,500 users in the Peer Network to join Medworxx.  For the Peer Network users to join Medworxx, they would require PHIM to hire additional staff to provide technical.  The Network has funding to hire 1.0 FTE for the LMS management position, but our budget does not allow us to fund for a 1.0 FTE for a HITS IT support position.  Due to funding constraints, the lack of key functionality that Moodle offers and the recent upgrade to HITS servers, I am proposing for DHW to adopt Moodle into the Peer Network Program.

Criteria for Selecting Moodle

The following criteria for selecting Moodle are based on Bates & Poole’s (2003) paper on the SECTIONS model and on the Chickering & Ehrmann’s (1996) Seven Principles.

1. Students (Bates & Poole, 2003):  Our users are spread all over Nova Scotia with varying levels of application utilization and roles within the clinic and requires customized learning paths in Moodle to support and continue their learning.  All users will have access to reliable internet since this is already a requirement for the NoD implementation and will have some computer knowledge due to their basic training.
2.  Ease of Use (Bates & Poole, 2003):  Moodle is user friendly and easy to upload course materials.  Due to Moodle being open sourced, there is no traditional methods of support; however, there are many resources on the Moodle site in the form of forums (Moodle).  In addition, the recent conclusion of the Adoption Initiative has released some time on the Implementation team and staff have been identified to help support the initial work needed to launch Moodle.
3. Cost (Bates & Poole, 2003):  Although Moodle is open source, the staff required to launch and maintain the site needs to be taken into consideration.  HITS has already acquired servers to support future development for the application so there is space for Moodle as well.  HITS does not have staff identified to support Moodle, but as stated previously, the Implementation team will be able to provide resources and the Peer Network has $50,000 for a LMS administrator position.
4. Teaching & Learning (Bates & Poole, 2003):  The content for the LMS is currently being developed by Peer Leaders, Peer Network team and Development team.  At present, the Peer Leaders respond to individual requests from users to make a face to face visit to their workplace to help clinics in their learning.  They help the learner at their own computer, making suggestions and teaching new functionality; however, they do not supply any handouts for reference after the session.  During a face to face session, a learner can be overwhelmed by the amount of information and then contact the helpdesk for extra help or to remember what they learned from the peer.  With an online resource, Peer Leaders can refer the learner back to Moodle to download materials, watch a video or go through the appropriate module with quizzes to assess learning. Having a variety of methods of learning respects the learners in their learning path (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996).
5. Interaction & Interactivity (Bates & Poole, 2003):  Building a Community of Practice requires interaction between users and peer leaders and Moodle has a discussion forum where asynchronous learning can take place.  Users can post questions, peer leaders can answer them without having to be there in person and this can also be seen by other users (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996) Peer leaders can also use this space to collaborate to develop content and discuss best practices.

References

Bates, A.W. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp. 77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers. Retrieved from https://connect.ubc.ca/bbcswebdav/pid-1069998-dt-content-rid-3495982_1/courses/SIS.UBC.ETEC.565A.66A.2013S1-2.14640/module1%20folder/Bates-Poole-Chapter4.pdf.

Canada Health Infoway: Regional Clinical Peer Networks.  Retrieved from https://www.infoway-inforoute.ca/index.php/progress-in-canada/clinician-peer-support-networks/regional-clinical-peer-networks.

Chickering, A.W. & Ehrmann, S.C. (1996).  Implementing the Seven Principles: Technology as Lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), p. 3-6. Retrieved from
http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm.

Chickering, A.W. & Gamson, Z.F. (1987).  Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.  American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 39 (7), p. 3-7. Retrieved from

http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples1987.htm.

Gray, B.  (2004). Informal Learning in an online community of practice.  Journal of Distance Education, 19 (1), 20-35.

Moodle:  About.  Retrieved from https://moodle.org/about/.