Massive open online courses (MOOCs) for long-distance education in geriatric medicine across Europe A pilot project launched by the consortium of the project "Screening for Chronic Kidney Disease among Older People": SCOPE project

Purpose To cover the increasing need for professional knowledge, skills and competences in the care of older people, new learning techniques have been developed. Using the Internet to provide educational material has come into focus of many academic institutions as the learning content can easily be transferred to a larger audience. Since the frst launch of a “massive open online course” (MOOC) in 2008, this educational format has raised increasing interest among education experts. The current publication provides insight into the new format of MOOCs in general and specifcally describes a MOOC devel‑ oped by a Pan-European Consortium “Screening for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) among Older People across Europe” (SCOPE), a project funded by the European Commission under the umbrella of the Horizon 2020 program. Methods Technical background, learning theories and content of the MOOC of the SCOPE project are presented in this overview. Results The MOOC of the SCOPE project is provided on the MOOC ICT platform iMoox. The courses are built up of video clips, textual descriptions, graphics, animations and audio designed with a clear structure and learning goals. The concise video clips with a maximum length of 15–20 min are equipped with additional learning material such as documents, links and asynchronous communication opportunities. Conclusion MOOCs are recognized as a contemporary approach to transfer required knowledge and skills not only in gen‑ eral but also in geriatric medicine, as the health and social care environment is ever-changing and becoming more complex.

• View at Publisher

Free Full Text ( Final Version , 447kb )