The Joint Initiative for Teaching and Learning on Global Health Challenges and One Health experience on implementing an online collaborative course
Funding:
DAAD, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
Creuza Rachel Vicente (a,b), Fabian Jacobs (c), Denise Siqueira de Carvalho (d), Kajal Chhaganlal (e), Raquel Baroni de Carvalho (a), Sonia Mara Raboni (d), Fatime Arënliu Qosaj (f), Paula Hanna Dau (g), Mariana Abou Mourad Ferreira (b), Manuela Negrelli Brunetti (b), Luana Fiengo Tanaka (g).
(a) Department of Social Medicine, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil, (b) Post-Graduate Program in Infectious Diseases, Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, Brazil, (c) Institute of Medical Education, University Hospital, LMU Munich, Munich, Germany, (d) Department of Collective Health, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba, Brazil, (e) Department of Health Sciences, Catholic University of Mozambique, Beira, Mozambique, (f) MSc Program in Healthcare Management, Kolegji AAB, Pristine, Kosovo, (g) Chair of Epidemiology, Department of Sports and Health Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany
Introduction and Aim:
- The online course “Global Health Challenges and One Health” was piloted between April and July 2021
- The course was offered to students from 6 universities in Brazil, Germany, Kosovo and Mozambique to connect students and professionals to share, learn and work together
- Aim: To evaluate the pilot course and identify key aspects for improvement
Methods:
- Course format: Synchronous and asynchronous activities accompanied by pre produced videos and additional material
- Course evaluation:
- Students: Activity data, students’ feedback (structured questionnaires, open questions and focus group discussions)
- Course coordinators: Group discussions
- Analysis: Quantitative data were evaluated using descriptive statistics and qualitative data were evaluated according to thematic analysis (1).
Results:
- Course participation: 30 participants were initially enrolled, of whom 19 completed the course.
- Reasons for dropout: high workload, time incompatibility with work and personal reasons.
- Students’ challenges: time zone differences and difficulties in communication and coordination of the group work and excessive workload when considering credits awarded.
- Coordinators’ challenges: Non-participation of students/professionals.
- Instruction language (English): posed difficulties especially during synchronous sessions.
- Strengths: Joint project, diversity of videos and activities, especially the synchronous ones.
- Suggestions for change: more synchronous sessions and less videos and asynchronous activities.
Discussion:
JITOHealth’s experiences in the pilot course are mostly align with those of other online courses. Completion of the course was higher than in other projects/MOOCs (2). The good to very good marks and the students’ positive feedback indicate that the course content was well understood and could be applied to a real life joint project considering that a final group project reflects the learning success of students (3). For the next course in 2022, a FAQ document (4) and a synchronous information session will be prepared to address the issues identified in the pilot phase. Credits will be adjusted to meet the required workload and subtitles will be added to the videos to ease the language barrier for the students.
Conclusion:
The course was well-accepted by students and coordinators and will be fully implemented in April 2022.
The detailed project description can be found in the Elsevier journal at:
www.elsevier.com/locate/onehlt in our first publication (2021) and our latest publication (2022).
