Two important elements of healthcare workforce development are access to information and quality higher education. Health sciences staff, students and healthcare professionals in low- and middle-income countries lack access to high quality health information adapted to their specific needs. Access to high quality education becomes more important for future healthcare professionals, amongst others because an accelerating digitalisation needs matching digital competencies. In Indonesia and Cambodia, these problems are excacerbated respectively by a spread-out geography and a challenging economical situation. Both countries want to enhance quality of their Higher Education (HE) and improve university support services.This project addressses the above needs by:1) Building up the capacity of techno-pedagogical staff, so they can assist teaching staff in implementing innovative techno-pedagogical projects in teaching & training2) Building up the capacity of health libraries and specialized librarians, so they can improve service for HEI staff & students and train them in digital information management skills 3) Ensuring open access to high-quality scientific and educational resources for HEI staff & students and healthcare professionals, via the development of platforms and supporting teaching and academic staff in posting high quality content on these platforms. The content will also be exploited by healthcare professionals. The impact of this project will be sustained beyond the project end, by (1) making sure that training is tailored to the needs of the HEIs; (2) subscribing to the vision and the strategy of the partner HEIs and (3) ensuring co-ownership of all digital platforms through a network of experts from Partner HEIs. The innovative platform will focus on infectious and (neglected) tropical diseases as a case study, given the specific expertise of all consortium partners. As such, this project aims to improve HE and ultimately healthcare quality in SEA.
HITIHE project had three objectives:1) Build up the capacity of techno-pedagogical staff, in order to assist teaching staff in implementing innovative teaching projects; 2) Build up the capacity of health libraries and specialised librarians, in order to train teaching staff and students on digital information skills; 3) Ensure access to high-quality and open-source educational resources (OER) to HEI staff, students, and healthcare professionals via the development of education platforms.
High-quality health information on tropical diseases is often inaccessible in South-East Asia (SEA). The Health Information and Technology for Improved Health Education (HITIHE) project aimed at strengthening educational capacities of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Indonesia and Cambodia, with the co-creation of open access online scientific content and educational resources on tropical medicine, such as interactive electronic clinical cases and other education tools.
<< Background >> High-quality health information on tropical diseases is often inaccessible in South-East Asia (SEA). The Health Information and Technology for Improved Health Education (HITIHE) project aimed at strengthening educational capacities of Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Indonesia and Cambodia, with the co-creation of open access online scientific content and educational resources on tropical medicine, such as interactive electronic clinical cases and other education tools. << Objectives >> HITIHE project had three objectives:1) Build up the capacity of techno-pedagogical staff, in order to assist teaching staff in implementing innovative teaching projects; 2) Build up the capacity of health libraries and specialised librarians, in order to train teaching staff and students on digital information skills; 3) Ensure access to high-quality and open-source educational resources (OER) to HEI staff, students, and healthcare professionals via the development of education platforms. << Implementation >> The project had an initial timeline of 3 years (November 2019-November 2023), but was granted an extra year due to the COVID traveling ban. Collaboration of experts in tropical medicine, techno-pedagogical staff and health librarians has been fostered between all partner institutions, initially online and as soon international traveling resumed, in workshops format. Subcontractors were called in the project according to the outcomes stipulated per work-package. << Results >> Technological investments, including recording studios, were set-up SEA partners, along with workshops to enhance the techno-pedagogical capacities of academic staff and health librarians. Two open-access platforms (WikiTropica.org, HITIHE.org) were developed and host relevant OER, co-developed during the project. Moodle was adopted as students’ Learning Management System and an open-access online journal was created in Cambodia. Each SEA HEI has developed an institutional library vision.