Now viewed over 1.7 million times on Pressbooks, the Conestoga-produced Building a Medical Terminology Foundation is a finalist in the Significant Impact OER Award category for this year's Open Education Awards by OEGlobal. Here's why it's so popular.
In 2019, there were no resources that addressed the specificity of learning medical terminology language. Students across the English-speaking globe had no choice but to purchase a medical terminology language textbook averaging $120 CAD.
Medical terminology and basic anatomy and physiology are often prerequisites to many healthcare programs and subsequent healthcare careers. But healthcare administration college students do not come to their programs with a biology pre-requisite, so while learning medical terminology they must also master the body's systems.
This gap in resources is what led Kimberlee Cater, Conestoga College, and Marie Rutherford, Georgian College to a highly collaborative, crowdsourced project in 2019 and 2020 to create Building a Medical Terminology Foundation OER.
An adaptation of the Open Stax Anatomy and Physiology OER, which was originally designed for university students and too high-level for first-year college students, this adaptation simplifies complex anatomy content and breaks down medical language with:
Using images from Open Stax, this adaptation levels up the interactives and meets a specific gap for level-one healthcare administration students.
Recognizing the value of this customized resource and the opportunity for significant student savings, Carter and Rutherford were committed to seeing this project completed and reached out to colleagues across Ontario for participation.
Suddenly, due to the worldwide pandemic, the sprint to publish was put on hold. But faculty, students, support staff, and administrators from across Ontario, including 6 community colleges and 1 university, continued to produce this resource under uncertain conditions.
This OER was published just in time for the Fall 2020 delivery of courses as remote learning continued during the pandemic. It was pivotal to ensure gaps in knowledge were filled in an engaging way, despite the unprecedented challenges of the time. Learn about the story of this resource in this open-access teaching case study.
Pressbooks Data Analytics Dashboard demonstrates the global and significant impact of this OER since publication:
A search of the Pressbooks directory finds that there are 11 adaptations attributed to this resource (based in Canada and the US):
Building a Medical Terminology Foundation 2e was published in Fall 2024.
Building on adaptations made by the Wisconsin team, the collaboration continues. Marie Rutherford, with the support of Georgian College, led a second edition of the college-focused resource that includes ancillaries such as an instructor's guide, student workbook, and digital activity book.
Collaborating alongside Connie Stevens from Sheridan College and with the assistance from the Open Learning team led by Kimberlee Carter, the new edition continues to fill gaps with additional chapters on oncology and mental health. It maintains the same focus on streamlined content and modernized interactives, with special attention to increased accessibility.
The new edition provides level-one healthcare administration students a high-quality resource whether they study online, hybrid, or in-person.
0 Comments.