Biomedical laboratory scientists (BLS) are responsible for medical laboratory analysis in health services worldwide. Working in a field of fast evolving medical technology, BLS education is continuously in the developmental process, utilizing information and communication technology (ICTs) and new laboratory methodologies. As a pedagogical signature of BLS education, students learn the theory of biomedical sciences and practice their hands-on skills during campus courses and clinical work placement at hospital laboratories. However, to improve quality of education there is a need for improved coherency between the study programs, to close the gap between theory and practice, and to increase the work relevance of the education. Biomedical Laboratory Scientists’ Triangular Centre of Knowledge (BioTriCK) is a strategic partnership focusing on the collaborations in the BLS triangle of students, clinical supervisors and university teachers. By introducing the production of digital learning tools as student centered activities, students and clinical supervisors will be involved as innovators and co-creators, to collaborate with university teachers on innovating BLS education. With the aim to increase quality and efficiency, to leverage resources, and improve learning outcomes for all role-players, BioTriCK is a transnational collaboration in the triangle of three European cities, Bergen in Norway, Coimbra in Portugal and Turku in Finland. These BLS study programs have been collaborating on students’ and teachers’ mobility for several years. Established mobility programs are further developed, now also including mobility of clinical supervisors between the hospital laboratories in the three cities. To establish our community of practice, students, teachers, and clinical supervisors will exchange within the triangle of Bergen, Coimbra,and Finland. However, due to economic and environmental limitations, only selected BLS stakeholders can be offered to participate in this opportunity. Solving these limitations, BioTriCK will further integrate transnational digital collaborations between students, supervisors and teachers, as part of the teaching activities in the BLS study programs. In this way, the established community of practice facilitates blended collaborations being a part of the BLS education. BioTriCK is a community of practice where stakeholders collaborate on innovating BLS education. ICT technologies will be utilized for establishing blended collaborations as well as blended learning in the community. Digital learning tools are developed and co-created to be shared between the study programs in a joint virtual classroom, the BLS Academy. Based on partners’ experiences on e-learning, we now see the need of increasing the competency of how to use and integrate digital learning tools by all teachers and supervisors involved, to achieve better coherence in BLS education. Therefore, BioTriCK involves EDvantage as an enterprise with comprehensive experience on coaching processes of integrating e-learning into higher education. The European Association for Professions on Biomedical Sciences (EPBS) is also involved in our strategic partnership, hosting the BLS Academy in their open-access web portal, facilitating dissemination and susceptibility of the project. EPBS organizes regular conferences, meetings and workshops for BLSs throughout Europe that will be future face-to-face meeting points for the members in our community of practice. By involving students and clinical supervisors as co-creators, these stakeholders achieve an increased influence innovating the BLS study programs. Collaborations in the transnational community of practice will improve education quality and increase motivation and learning outcomes among BLS participants. As the BLS Academy will be an open access web portal, easily available through the web page of EPBS, this will function as an international virtual classroom where new stakeholders at other study programs are encouraged to utilize and co-create digital learning tools, also inviting into the community of practice. Closer blended collaborations both between different types of stakeholders, as well as between European and international colleagues will improve quality of the BLS education and the competencies, this to improve quality of medical laboratory services in the future health care system.
The Biomedical laboratory science Triangular Centre of Knowledge (BioTriCK) is a strategic partnership aiming to provide better quality in the BLS education by improving coherency and decreasing gaps between the triangles of: 1. Teaching theory, laboratory courses and clinical practice. 2. Teacher, student and clinical supervisor. 3. University campus, hospital laboratories and virtual classrooms. 4. Bergen, Coimbra and Turku. To achieve our main objectives, BioTriCK planned to: • Do design thinking to involve BioTriCK stakeholders as innovators and co-creators (IO1). • Develop a transnational community of practice in BLS education (IO2) using both virtual and face-to-face meeting points for blended collaboration, communication, and information between the mentioned triangles. • Develop an open access virtual classroom, the BLS Academy (IO3) to share digital learning tools. This to improve coherency between the mentioned triangles. • To develop guidelines and learning modules increasing the competency of the BLS stakeholders, both for developing, and utilizing digital learning tools (IO4). • To share experiences from the BioTriCK project by using digital storytelling, this to motivate others to innovate higher education (IO5).
Biomedical laboratory scientists (BLS) are responsible for medical laboratory analysis worldwide. As a pedagogic signature of the discipline, BLS students, do practical training both as laboratory courses on campus of the higher educational institutions (HEIs) and as work placement in hospital laboratories. During their clinical work placement, students practice in an authentic work environment supervised by BLS employees with clinical experiences, developing both soft skills as well as technical and analytical skills. However, BLS students experience gaps in the transformation between teaching theory, training skills in the school laboratory, and the more authentic and complex scenarios in clinical practice. There is a need to address this gap and study programs are working on standardization of learning outcomes, increasing the pedagogic competency of the clinical supervisors, and facilitating closer collaborations between HEIs and health services to improve quality of the work placement for the students. To improve quality, there is a need to improve coherency between study programs, to close the gap between theory and practice, and to increase the work relevance of the education.