title: Development of eMed: a comprehensive, modular curriculum-management system.
abstract: In 2001 the University of New South Wales Faculty of Medicine embarked on designing a curriculum-management system to support the development and delivery of its new, fully integrated, outcome-based, six-year undergraduate medicine program. The Web-enabled curriculum-management system it developed is known as eMed, and it comprises a suite of integrated tools used for managing graduate outcomes, content, activities, and assessment in the new program. The six main tools are a curriculum map, timetable, student portfolio, peer feedback tool, assessment tracking, and results tools. The eMed functions were determined by organizational and curricular needs, and a business management perspective guided its development. The eMed project was developed by a multidisciplinary team, and its successful development was achieved mostly by methodically identifying the scope of each tool and the business processes it supports. Evaluation results indicated a high level of user acceptance and approval. The eMed system is a simple yet effective educational technology system that allows users to evaluate and improve the curriculum in real time. As a second-generation curriculum-management system, eMed is much more than an educational administration system; it is a knowledge network system used by staff and students to transform data and information into knowledge and action. The integration of learning and assessment activities data in the one system gives a depth of curriculum information that is unusual and that allows for data-based decision making. Technologically, eMed helps to keep the medicine program up to date. Organizationally, it strengthens the school's data-driven decision-making process and knowledge network culture.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Office of Medical Education, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. e.watson@unsw.edu.au
authors.forename: Eilean G S
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Watson
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Moloney
authors.forename: Susan M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Toohey
authors.forename: Christopher S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Hughes
authors.forename: Suzanne L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Mobbs
authors.forename: James B
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Leeper
authors.forename: H Patrick
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: McNeil
mesh_terms: D003199:Computer Systems; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction; D003479:Curriculum; D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008331:Management Information Systems; D009517:New South Wales; D014584:User-Computer Interface