Thursday, December 14, 2006

Harvard Medical School, MyCourses

At the Harvard Medical School, they have already begun to implement some OpenCourseWare, through their MyCourses Open Courseware Initiative. It has material from loads of courses from "Human Pathology" to "Fundamentals of Implant Dentistry" to "Structural Acupuncture for Physicians." (Just click on "View Course List.") For some courses, it is just illustrations and graphics or .pdfs of lectures, but for others there is significant material.

The Harvard Medical School has made it very simple for faculty to include materials int he project: "Every faculty member at Harvard [Medical School], in every course, may share course content with the public by simply checking a box on a web page to identify course resources to post to the Open Courseware Initiative." They have done so because they recognize their "moral obligation to share [their] knowledge with other academic communities and the general public."

And, be sure to check out the "Virtual Patient" (second-to-last on the Course List). You can interview and try to diagnose virtual patients who come to you with particular symptoms/complaints!

No comments: