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Improving Online Teaching in a Required Geriatrics Clerkship Using Heuristic Evaluation

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Abstract

We demonstrate conducting heuristic evaluation to improve the usability of online medical education using an instrument specifically designed for e-learning. Specifically, we describe the process and outcomes of implementing heuristic evaluation to enhance a newly developed online geriatric module. The result of this implementation indicated the feasibility and usefulness of incorporating HE, as a relatively low-cost usability evaluation approach, into the refinement of e-learning systems in medical education. Lessons learned from this implementation and future steps are presented at the end.

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Acknowledgements

We deeply appreciate Dr. Thomas Reeves, one of the authors of the usability instrument, and all the reviewers of the journal for reviewing our paper and providing feedback. Additionally, many thanks to Haiyan He for supporting the development and revision of this module, and many thanks to Jason Bennett for participating in the review of the module. Last but not least, development of this online module was supported by the University of Virginia School of Medicine’s Academy of Distinguished Educators (ADE) Educational Research and Innovations Grant program. However, this evaluation study itself was not supported by any funding.

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  1. University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA, 22908, USA

    Weichao Chen, Huai Y. Cheng & Elizabeth Bradley

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  1. Weichao Chen
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  2. Huai Y. Cheng
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  3. Elizabeth Bradley
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Correspondence to Weichao Chen.

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Chen, W., Cheng, H.Y. & Bradley, E. Improving Online Teaching in a Required Geriatrics Clerkship Using Heuristic Evaluation. Med.Sci.Educ. 27, 871–875 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-017-0437-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40670-017-0437-x

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