project background

The pilot project, a fore-runner to the current project, started back in October, 1996 with funding from the North Thames Deanery, who continue to support the ongoing development of this current research. The project was the idea of the Director of Medical Education at Whipps Cross Hospital in Leytonstone, whose aim was to create an online community linking together relevant hospitals around the region, to enable SpRs of the North Thames (East) Thoracic Society to participate with online educational tasks to complement their monthly society meetings. Information Communication Technology (ICT) is becoming increasingly important in all professional fields, participation in online activities is now a compulsory part of our SpRs' training with the N. Thames society.

The Medical Education Centre at Whipps Cross teamed-up with Ultralab (part of Anglia Polytechnic University) to establish the original site, and are continuing to support the ongoing development of the project . As one might expect, the project started slowly as we encountered a huge number of challenges, both in terms of user expectations, but also technical and resource problems. The project is now being used, to varying extents, by all SpRs of the North East Thames Thoracic Society. Interesting and valuable observations are continually recorded.

Originally the site was established using a standard Macintosh web-server, with all user-interaction controlled by cgi's (common gateway interfaces) that were written by Ultralab. This was quite successful, although development of the cgi's, web-pages and content proved to be a large hit on the time of all involved.

The infrastructure of the NETTS-SpRITE Intranet started to use SoftArc's FirstClass Intranet Server software to provide the necessary message handling, multimedia and web-publishing environment. FirstClass provides each user with highly effective messaging service, file-transfer, multimedia support, real-time chat and personal web-publishing.

Chestnet.net is born - The Chestnet.net web site presents respiratory reference resources to the general medical community. Chestnet.net also includes SpRITE; a password protected web site and conferencing environment. SpRITE aims to identify optimal use of interactive multimedia technology in presenting training resources to SpRs and to pioneer assessment across regional boundaries.

New information technology presents the opportunity of providing the same evaluated learning material to all trainees regardless of their location. We intend to study the use of such a training material resource based on an internet web site open to respiratory medicine trainees across Europe. The potential advantages of such a system are that :

it allows users to access material at times and locations of their convenience
educational resources are dynamic and can be updated quickly
trainees can participate in self directed learning
a range of mechanisms can be provided to validate training methodology
comparisons of training methodology across regions can be made
it provides a secure environment for discussion of sensitive issues
it encourages the development of collaborative relationships between remote users
assessment and feedback can be introduced and automated

We believe these advantages will provide the basis from which we can initiate a new paradigm for SpR training and research.

Project Staff
Picture/name	Role	Resume
Dr. Mike Roberts	Education Consultant	Mike Roberts is Physician and Director of Medical at Forest Healthcare Trust London. He has an interest in distance learning and thought up the concept of the North East Thames internet learning program for thoracic SpRs in 1996. The project has since developed into an open learning resource and self assessment site which continues to evolve according to the needs of medical trainees.
Ian Tindal	Internet Project Coordinator	Ian is the current Chestnet.net project manager and researcher. He is a Ph.D. research fellow at Ultralab - the Learning Technologies Dept. at Anglia Polytechnic University. He joined the project on a full time basis in September 99 following a career as a teacher and internet technologies educational consultant and currently works remotely from home in the far West of Cornwall.
Anne Weist	Whipps Cross MEC Librarian	Anne is the Senior Trust Librarian at Whipps Cross and leads the local education consortia's library group. She was a key project worker during the SpRITE pilot phase, co-ordinating N. Thames East Thoracic Society online activities and providing resources for the project. She has helped to co-ordinate Chestnet since its inception and has used the North Thames Library network to facilitate SpRs' access to the Internet. A keen advocate of computer assisted learning, Anne has run many "hands on" Chestnet tutorials.