Introducing: Health Sciences Online

[JHAm...@gmail.com]

Dear Forum Members,

This is to introduce you to Health Sciences Online (www.hso.info),
which has been called “a visionary undertaking” (by former CDC
Director Jeff Koplan), is expected to “globally democratize health
science knowledge” (by World Bank), and is thought by WHO “to make a
considerable contribution to the advancement of e-learning
worldwide.” Anne Margulies (Executive Director of Open Course Ware at
MIT) says that "HSO is an incredible resource for health professionals
all over the world. Open access to health information should
literally save millions of lives and lead to important new
discoveries."

HSO is a sieve that includes world-class materials (currently
numbering >50,000 resources), hand-selected by clinicians from already-
existing reliable sources and resource collections. This includes
medical specialty societies, accredited continuing education
organizations, governments, and top-ranked universities such as
Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Penn, and UCSF. Founding
collaborators for this site include WHO, CDC, NATO, World Bank, the
American College of Preventive Medicine, and our home institution,
UBC. HSO is non-profit; funding has been obtained from the Canadian
and British Columbian governments, WHO, NATO, the Ulrich and Ruth
Frank Foundation for International Health, and several generous and
committed individuals. Health providers and scientists, in training
and in practice, have donated thousands of hours, identifying and
making materials accessible for HSO users.

Health sciences information and training are vital for health and
socioeconomic development, but excellent, free learning resources are
difficult to find. In recent years, information and communication
technologies, particularly the Internet, have been central to
remedying this situation. But there are still significant hurdles to
accessing online content. WHO and others have shown that there is an
enormous need to identify selective, current, accessible online
educational and training resources to promote appropriate care and
policies. In our 2007, 11-country pilot, nearly all users indicated
that the HSO website will make their work more effective and
productive, help them learn, and increase their motivation and
interest in learning.
HSO will launch in Summer 2008 as a virtual learning center with
browse and search functions. HSO provides free, online linkages to a
comprehensive collection of top-quality courses and references in
medicine, public health, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, basic sciences,
and other health sciences disciplines. These materials are donated,
hosted, and maintained by our distinguished content partners, so
quality is maintained, and materials can be constantly updated.

For more information or to contribute, contact Erica Frank, MD, MPH,
HSO Founder/Executive Director, efr...@emory.edu or Erica...@ubc.ca

[Toyin Oloniteru]

This is a very good and interesting contribution, which we will find
very useful. We need to have some specific e-champions in rural
communities and language specialist to work together to make this
information available and accessible to local communities in the way
they can understand. This is our peculiar challenge that must be
resolved.

Regards,

Olutoyin J. Oloniteru.

2008/6/16 <JHAm...@gmail.com>:

--
Toyin Oloniteru
Lagos, Nigeria
Email: toyin.o...@gmail.com
Cell:2348022920006

[iretiayo]

Hello,
this is a project that most people especially Heath Workers will
find useful, especially Students who spend endless hours on the net
trying to access information as touching health related matters.
most researching students will be glad for a project like this, the
only thing left is good publicity about the site so that people are
well informed about a site like this.
raelly it is a global village now emerging as a global hamlet
Sunmbola Paul RN,OHN, PGD E-Teaching

[iretiayo]

[Tunde Ipaye]

Dear Iretiayo, Sunmbo and friends,

It is really nice reading the posting by Iretiayo and colleagues.  One of the resoand for getting the virtual forum by the people_uni on last week was to awaken interest and spread awareness on the issue of medical education and distance education, health -online etc.  It will be quite interesting if Iretiolu and frineds can attend and oparticpate inthe forthcoming  ACDE2008 pre-conference workshop facilitated by Prof Dick Heller and Omo on July 8, 2008 at Eko Hotel and Towers. We had sent letters to all Teaching Hospitals, Medical bodies, professioanl organisations in Health Health related NGOs etc. in Nigeria, inviting them for the workshop again for purposes of getting this idea moved forward in Africa.

 

Professor Babatunde Ipaye

Chairman, LOC, ACDE 2008