Online Medical Image Analysis

What did you intend the students to learn from this teaching and learning activity?
We created an e-learning platform with a focus on analyzing medical images targeting training of medical staff. The platform can both provide a quick way to test the knowledge of students on specific topics with multiple-choice tests and videos, or test students on how to grade and mark medical images to find and describe specific structures in the medical images. As the students progress through the learning materials, they get feedback to improve their knowledge or skills.

Which general features of the teaching and learning activity, would you share at TAL2021?
The image tests are the heart of the platform, since they contain a large part of the content that students learn. The goal of the image tests is to train students in identifying and marking certain structures given the specific medical domain. For example, in diabetic retinopathy the students must be able to distinguish be-tween grades 0 to 4 on the ICDR-grading system, where signs of microaneurysms in the eye indicates a score above 0. Either students can be given a task to grade a medical image using the previously mentioned grading system, or they can be required to mark any structures of a certain kind (either in free-hand or simply clicking structures), for example microaneurysms. Students who fail to correctly grade or mark the medical images can use the provided automatic feedback to improve. Feedback for marking tasks also al-low students to see how the teacher marked the image, where the students can examine the correctly marked structures in greater detail.

According to you and the students, what was the impact of the teaching and learning activity on student learning/engagement?
The platform removes the need for physically printed medical images in a physical classroom since students can go through the learning material online in their own time, pace, and place. Students, who tried the platform, indicated that the platform was easy to navigate, and that the videos and image tests on the plat-form were instructive, although the free-hand marking image tests did take time for students to get through.

How could your practice be inspirational/transferable to other teachers, students, institutions...?
The creation of an e-learning platform from scratch is a large endeavor and therefore not easily transferable. However, the idea of virtual learning material - whether it is the full curriculum or only parts of it – allows reuse and easy access to students when or if they need it. Since the platform also automates the feedback of tests, the teacher does not have to spend time on this unless specifically requested, freeing resources from the teacher to be spent on other activities. The platform that we built can, however, always be extended with new medical domains for anyone, where we currently have an ultrasound-scanning do-main underway.