In all the World Wide Web space, you can’t find anything useful as a dental professional? Frustrated with searching the Net?
Many of the questions that dental professionals have about the new developments of their field go unanswered due to of lack of time or the inconvenience of securing the answer. While the Web has brought us a world of information at our fingertips, many of us find Web content to be unevenly distributed and difficult to find. This online course assumes that you have already tried to search the Web and had difficulties finding information quickly. Our newly developed online learning environment will automatically adapt to your individual level of expertise and your personal learning goals. After completion of the course, you will be more effective and efficient of when it comes to searching the Web for professional information.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
- improve ability to find information when searching the Internet
- increase conceptual understanding of the information retrieval process to become a proficient information seeker
- be able to check validity of online information resources
These course objectives may vary based on your own selection of learning goals at the beginning of the course!
COURSE OUTLINE
- You will learn about the structure of the Internet and the reasons why effectively searching the Internet is a challenge.
- You will be exposed to information needs analysis and the differences between information and knowledge.
- While we will not focus on specific search engines, you will learn how to evaluate the effectiveness of information retrieval systems.
- After an introduction about the effectiveness of information retrieval systems you will learn about the different types of search engines on the Internet.
- You will be familiar with various general and special purpose search engines and advanced concepts of information retrieval, such as ranking and matching criteria.
- Finding information is only the beginning of the process to gather new knowledge. You will be able to apply newly learned criteria to determine the validity of the information offered.
- You will learn how to find an authoritative information source and how to check the validity of information using different techniques.
YOU WILL LEARN
You will learn about …
- the structure of the Internet
- the amount of information online available
- different information needs of different users
- conceptual understanding for an effective information retrieval
- pitfalls of searching the Internet
- different types of search engines on the Internet
- advanced search options offered by most search engines
- character of special purpose search engines
- sources for consumer health information
- the concept behind Google's search mechanism
- query simplification through search-by-example
- special requirements for the validity of health care information
You will learn how to
- differentiate between information and knowledge
- use Boolean operators
- search for graphical information
- use EBD/EBM databases to make evidence-based decisions
- apply general information quality criteria to health care information
- give appropriate recommendations to patients about consumer health
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Every dental professional who searches the Web for professional purposes.
MINI BIO
Dr. Heiko Spallek is Assistant Professor at the Center for Dental Informatics. Since 1994, he has been developing Web-based educational resources for dental professionals. His current projects try to exploit adaptive hypermedia research in order to move to an individualized instructional approach to teaching. Dr. Spallek is the chair of the dental informatics working group of the American Medical Informatics Association. He envisions a learner-centered education in which every learner will be “special.”
Continuing Education Credits
The University of Pittsburgh is an ADA CERP Recognized Provider. This course is acceptable for continuing education credit and applicable toward Academy of General Dentistry maintenance, fellowship, or mastership requirements. This course meets the criteria for Three Continuing Education Units (3 CEU).
Costs
The fee for receiving the continuing education certificate is $75. The amount is due after you completed the course. Printable instructions will be provided at the end of the course.
This free online course is devoted to the histology and microscopic anatomy of the periodontium. The author of this web-based course is Max A. Listgarten, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania and Clinical Professor of Periodontics at the University of California in San Francisco. Heiko Spallek (University of Pittsburgh) accounts for the technical implementation of the course. A German translation of the original Englisch version was provided by James Deschner (The Ohio State University).