University of Turku pioneers in developing the online educational resources in biomedicine

The course was an excellent example of developing digital learning, international collaboration and successful virtual mobility, which are aspects directly supporting the new strategy of the university.

Mouse histology was selected as the first online course topic of the Nordic Biomedicine network, because there is a huge demand for mouse pathology and histology training, and University of Turku had the expertise and required materials to arrange it.

The Online Mouse Histology Course has been developed in the Institute of Biomedicine to provide the students with knowledge about mouse histology, differences between human and mouse, and alterations in different mouse strains. The course participants also learned to collect and prepare samples for histological analyses, and to use WebMicroscope, a virtual microscope using digitized specimens which can be viewed as virtual slides on a computer screen.

The course was based on the EU-funded "Disease Model Pathology Training Programme" for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers, which was run by a PathPath consortium of Universities of Turku, Helsinki and Glasgow and Technical University of Munich in 2011-2013.

Of mice and men

Understanding of mouse histology is an important component in the professional toolbox of a modern biomedical scientist. Online course teacher, Leena Strauss from the Institute of Biomedicine explains:

Mouse is currently widely used as a model for human diseases, and in order to master the human disease-like manifestations in mice, the normal mouse histology and its similarities and differences compared to human histology must be understood.

- Mouse is currently widely used as a model for human diseases, and in order to master the human disease-like manifestations in mice, the normal mouse histology and its similarities and differences compared to human histology must be understood.

Encouraged by the success of the first course and the high demand for this type of training, Leena Strauss is already making plans to reorganize the course again in the near future. Target audience will be expanded to cover the doctoral candidates and post-doctoral researchers at the Universities of Turku and Eastern Finland.

 

Photo: Eeva Rainio and Leena Strauss signing course diplomas.

Growing global – novel Open Educational Resource in Biomedicine

Modern biomedical imaging technologies together with mouse histology training will form an important module also in the future Open Educational Resource in Biomedicine.

- It is a virtual biomedical training platform which is currently developed by the NordBioMedNet network. The aim is to provide open online courses which will better prepare the biomedical students to meet the modern professional challenges, tells the network coordinator Eeva Rainio.

The next new course module will focus on ethical aspects in biomedicine. Due to rapid development in biomedical research and techniques, including data science and information technology, novel challenging ethical issues have risen, which relate to privacy protection and information ownership.

With the help of experts from the Learning, Informatics Management and Ethics Unit of Karolinska Institutet, an online course in biomedical ethics will be developed to be run on an open-access virtual platform, openedX.

Professor of medical ethics Veikko Launis from University of Turku has a central role in building up the course content together with his colleagues from NordBioNedNet partner universities.

Through this Open Educational Resource project NordBioMedNet also explores the potential to develop its activities further towards the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership and Capacity Building programmes.

NordBioMedNet forms a collaborative network in the field of biomedicine between Universities of Bergen, Copenhagen, Eastern Finland, Turku and Karolinska Institutet. The idea for the network originated in 2013 to make the individual biomedical teaching programmes of these universities

even stronger and internationally more competitive by providing the complementing activities from the partners within the network. The network supports mobility, organizes special intensive courses and, importantly, develops the virtual online teaching and information platform, NordBioMed.Net portal, where the online course was also hosted. NordBioMedNet is currently coordinated from the University of Turku and funded by Nordplus and University of Turku strategic funding. Master´s Degree Programme in Drug Discovery and Development is part of the NordBioMedNet. www.nordbiomed.net

www.nordbiomed.net


Text: Eeva Rainio
Photos: Leena Strauss, Marko Tirri & Tilda Junko