Graduate Medical Program

When the Faculty of Medicine changed its medical training program to a graduate degree, it also introduced online, problem-based learning for the new course. This new approach required not only new teaching material and educational expertise, but also the ability to manage and develop material efficiently and to monitor usage to ensure that the system effectively met the needs of users. From this approach emerged a distinction between the Content and the Content Management System.

The positive experience of students and the innovative educational design of the program led to it being licensed in whole or part to a number of medical schools both in Australia and overseas. While the licensees have the right to further develop content for their own special needs, each licensee's implementation is enhanced by the Content Management System.

Further developments

The ongoing development of the Content Management System for use by other medical schools and educational providers created a resource that has been successfully brought together with specialist skills in health education and project management to underpin the establishment of the Centre for Innovation in Professional Health Education "CIPHE".

CIPHE has successfully undertaken projects for a number of parties that includes workforce organisations, professional bodies and government departments. Projects have included the development of flexible accreditation programs for a range of busy health professionals, program and assessment reviews for a number of professional colleges and the development of the National Patient Safety Education Framework for the Australian Council for Quality and Safety in Health Care. The reported high quality outcomes of the educational developments, repeat and referred business all demonstrate the University's success in building from its own creative developments and applying diverse specialist skill sets to address the needs of local and national communities.