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The University of Southampton Medical School e-learning unit has produced a series of dermatology surgical videos. These videos are downloadable and optimised for mobile phone usage. Videos include topics such as preparing tools, ellipse excision and curettage and diathermy of the ear. To view the materials, please visit: https://www.som.soton.ac.uk/learn/elearning/materials/new/dermatology/

The Learning Registry is a project based in the United States and run by the Department of Education and the Department of Defence. Its aim is to provide a set of technical protocols for content authors and aggregators, that facilitate the sharing of ratings, comments, downloads and standards alignment. The platform provide nodes, networks and communities for the capture, sharing and analysis of this learning resource activity data that is being referred to as 'paradata'. More information about the Learning Registry is available from: http://www.learningregistry.org/

JISC and the Mimas data centre are running a UK Learning Registry Node Experiment and was the subject of a recent CETIS ‘hackday’ event. This project can be followed at the following blog: http://jlernexperiment.wordpress.com/

MedEdPORTAL is offering a collection of educational resources designed to teach students about health issues relevant to the military, veterans, and their families. The Joining Forces Collection is part of the US Joining Forces initiative to support members of the military and their families. Topics will cover all aspects of care, from the physical to the psychological, including but not limited to the challenges faced by multiple deployments, coping with combat injuries, suicide prevention, and grief counseling. Material on the site will be cross-referenced with other AAMC resources including MedEdPORTAL and Academic Medicine. Initial resources include PTSD 101, a primer on military life and culture for health care providers and trainees, and suicide facts for primary care providers. To learn more visit: www.aamc.org/icollaborative/joiningforces.

The US Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the companion Protect IP Act (PIPA) have gone back to the drawing board amid high visibility protests from Internet powerhouses including Wikipedia and Google. The draft legislation would have allowed copyright holders to seek court orders to bring down websites associated with copyright infringement. For open sites that allow users to post content, including open education websites, SOPA and PIPA were perceived as a threat to the collaborative potential offered by Internet technologies.   More information: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/19/what-is-sopa_n_1216725.html  and http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/internet-wins-sopa-and-pipa-both-shelved.ars for starters.

The rigors of formal education are a must for medical learners, but one day that system could be complimented or even challenged by a less formal system of recognizing accomplishments that comes from the gaming world. Online badges are designed to recognize skills and abilities demonstrated outside of a formal educational environment. With funding from the MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla is developing an open infrastructure for awarding and collecting badges. The Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org), a non-profit offering free online learning program, awards a variety of badges ranging from “Just Getting Started” ( for listening to 30 minutes of videos) to “Copernicus” (proficiency in any 200 exercises) or the more targeted “Master of Trigonometry.” The value of the badge is entirely subjective; schools and employers may or may not place value on badges a learner has earned. In the future, badges could offer medical learners a way to distinguish their skills or demonstrate competence in required subjects. To learn more, visit: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges  and http://chronicle.com/article/Badges-Earned-Online-Pose/130241/

Social Care Institute for Excellence has released an e-learning resource on substance misuse. This 30 minute online resource covers topics around parental substance misuse and the effect on children, delivered through audio, video and interactive features. It includes working definitions of substance use and misuse, commonly misuse substances, behavioural change, treatment options and family relationships. The resource is available in both text and Flash format and can be downloaded in a SCORM compatible version. The learner has the option to record personal notes and there is a self-assessment exercise included. The resource is available at: http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/elearning/parentalsubstancemisuse/index.asp

The journal Research in Learning Technology has now been designated open access, with articles from 1993 onwards available freely. This is a peer reviewed journal of the Association for Learning Technology covering topics in learning technology good practice and policy development. The journal can accessed at: http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/

A new, free Learning Management System provides a simple, social networking-based interface for online learning. Developed by three former University of Pennsylvania students, Coursekit allows learners to post status updates, media, questions, and blogs. CourseKit is cloud-hosted service like gmail or Facebook. Instructors log in and set up a course , creating a calendar, uploading resources, and entering a grading rubric. For more information, see: http://coursekit.com/

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has launched MITx, an online interactive learning platform for MIT courses. Built on open source technologies, the MITx will be made available at no cost so that other schools can use the system for their course offerings. The software will include the capability for online laboratories and other opportunities for student-student interaction. Students who demonstrate mastery of the subjects offered through MITx will be able to earn a certificate of completion awarded by MITx. MIT Provost L. Rafael Reif said that the initiative is “extremely important to the future of high-quality, affordable, accessible education.”  MITx builds upon MIT’s OpenCourseWare, a free online publication of MIT undergraduate and graduate course materials used by over 100 million people. MIT President Susan Hockfield said “in offering an open-source technological platform to other educational institutions everywhere, we hope that teachers and students the world over will together create learning opportunities that break barriers to education everywhere.” MITx will be coupled with an MIT-wide research initiative studying ways in which students learn most effectively. A prototype of MITx is planned for Spring 2012. For more information, see: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/mitx-education-initiative-1219.html

Have you been dreaming of sharing high quality assessments with your peers, using a resource that makes the right assessments easy to find and implement? Your dreams have been answered! The Georgia Health Sciences University is requesting submissions for the Directory and Repository of Educational Assessment Measures, or DREAM. DREAM is a peer-reviewed, searchable database of validated assessment measures used in medical education. DREAM couples the assessment measures with supplementary materials and peer-reviewed written analysis of the measure to facilitate appropriate implementation. DREAM will be made available through the Association of American Medical Colleges MedEdPORTAL (https://www.mededportal.org/). To submit your assessment measures, visit: http://www.georgiahealth.edu/medicine/discovery/edi/dream/