Combined Interactive Presentation of Patient Cases and Linear Contents: An Application in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

Many case-based learning systems are characterized by both time-consuming authoring processes as well as a rigid scheme of interaction with the provided cases. In this paper, an XML-driven e-learning framework is presented which can be generically applied in various medical disciplines. It focuses on the effective development and multimedia-based presentation of patient cases, linear contents and questions. Contents related to each other can be linked and displayed together. In the Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at the University Hospital Freiburg this framework was introduced and evaluated through an e-learning system providing a presentation of 41 authentic cases in combination with two standard textbooks. An evaluation showed that learning with the e-learning application resulted in similar learning outcomes than conventional paper based method.