An exploratory analysis of technical issues in remote education between international medical institutions

Abstract

International education programs that use videoconferencing (VC) are common now and many are being implemented in the medical field. Irrespective of the value of the content, the learning process can be disrupted when technical quality of VC is compromised. In this study, a participatory design (PD) was used with focus group discussion between technical support staff to determine and classify the causes of technical issues in international remote medical education by VC. As a result, a quality of experience (QoE) -based framework was developed based on the technical issues raised. User behavior and three factors (context, human and system factors) influence technical errors, either preventing or creating difficulties, and affecting each other. For future prototyping of the PD process, it is suggested to have a flexible and specific operational procedure which considers variables of engineers’ background.