Digime: An online portal to support connectivity through e-learning in medical education

Abstract

Connectivity is intrinsic to all aspects of our life today, be it political, economic, technological, scientific, or personal. Higher education is also transcending the previous paradigm of technology enabled content delivery and e-learning, with a new emphasis on connectivity, enabling participants to exchange knowledge and collaborate to meet educational goals. In this study, a social media technology supported website—digiMe—was developed and evaluated at the School of Medicine of one Australian university. Connectivity to other medical learners and health professionals is intrinsic to digiMe. This paper reports the functionalities of this website, results of a post-intervention evaluative survey, and statistics of website usage generated from Google Analytics. The results revealed more active adoptions and a more positive attitude towards digiMe from Year 4 students compared to Year 5 students. The participants showed a desire for access to a recommended collection of apps, such as those offered through digiMe. However, many participants did not use digiMe beyond initial introduction to it. digiMe demonstrated its potential in raising awareness of web and mobile apps useful for enhancing connectivity, although it needs to be introduced to students in earlier years of their medical education to achieve a higher impact on their learning.