SP10.2.11 Horses for Courses – do surgical courses exist outside of the Royal Colleges?

Aims Educational courses supplement deanery-led teaching, and may be mandatory for training progression. The Royal College websites are the first contact for trainees to search for courses, with other courses identified by word of mouth. This project aimed to collate a first comprehensive database of courses available for core and higher general surgical trainees and to identify areas requiring development. Methods A snowballing approach was used to systematically search all online available resources. This includes, but was not limited to, websites of the Royal Colleges, sub-speciality societies, trainee organisations, regional centres, deaneries and surgical technology companies. Course target grade, price, provider and dates were collated into a database. Conferences and symposiums were excluded. Results 47 sources yielded 173 courses, priced between £50 to £1600 (median £450). Technical skills (89/173) and clinical courses (45/173) entailed the majority; only 3 courses developed non-technical skills and 4 developed surgical leadership. Other categories include revision (11.6%), teaching (5.2%), and research skills (1.7%). The Royal Colleges provided 27.7% of all available courses, with the majority developed and delivered by other institutions. There was significant variability in available course information. Conclusions There are a wide variety of courses available for surgical trainees, however this information is fragmented, duplicated and incomplete. A central database requires maintenance, but would provide a reliable source of information. Leadership, research and non-technical skills are critical skills for surgeons – the lack of courses in these areas was surprising and require development as only 4 courses are endorsed by the Royal Colleges.

How Can We Help You?

Institutional websites are powerful tools that communicate wide range of information. Providing access to higher education requires institutions to consider how services are communicated with a goal of engaging students from diverse populations. This study utilized a conceptual content analysis to review university and college websites to determine how information about support services for first-generation students is electronically communicated. The researchers constructed an evaluative study to assess 14 institutions to formulate a critique and extend the work of Eccles’s expectancy-value theory (1984), which suggests that achievement-related choices are motivated by students’ expectations for success. The results of this study found salient factors to indicate that institutions sought to provide support for first-generation students, but relevant information was not always explicitly conveyed on websites, particularly in ways most likely to engage diverse populations.

Navigating Vertical Transfer Online: Access to and Usefulness of Transfer Information on Community College Websites

Objective: To transfer, students often must navigate complex and imperfect information about credit transfer, bureaucratic hurdles, and conflicting degree requirements. This study examined how administrators and transfer personnel think about institutional online transfer resources and examined community colleges’ online transfer information. Methods: For a sample of 20 Texas community colleges, we spoke to key transfer personnel about the information provided to students and reviewed college websites, assessing the ease of access and usefulness of online transfer information. We used a qualitative case study approach to triangulate findings from our data sources. Results: Approximately two thirds of colleges in the sample fell below the highest standard on our rubric for either ease of access or usefulness, indicating room for improvement at most institutions. Many personnel recognized the strengths and limitations of their college’s online information, though several were ambivalent about the need for improving online information, arguing that online information is not as promising an intervention as face-to-face advising. Conclusion/Contributions: Our research illustrates the need for colleges to develop and update their online information intentionally, determining which information students need to transfer (including transfer guides for partner programs/colleges) and how students might search for that information, and ensuring that necessary transfer information is available and up to date. The framework provided by our website review approach, coupled with a proposed rubric to assess ease of access and usefulness of transfer information, may guide institutions in their evaluation of their online transfer information.

Protection of digital health information: Examining guidance from the physician regulatory colleges in Canada

Background: The use of information and communication technology (ICT) has tremendous potential to enhance communication among physicians, leading to improvements in service delivery. However, the protection of health information in digital/electronic format is an ongoing concern. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine guidance for the protection of health information when using ICT from all 10 of Canada’s provincial regulatory colleges for physicians and to discuss the potential policy and service delivery implications. Method: A search of the regulatory college websites was conducted, followed by a document analysis (content and thematic). Results: The college website search identified 522 documents; 12 of these documents (from 8 of the 10 colleges) met the study criteria. These documents were notable for the considerable variation in the scope and detail of guidance provided across the colleges. Conclusion: While the federal–provincial division of powers in Canada enables different jurisdictional approaches to health service delivery and, thus, opportunities for policy learning, this governing structure may also contribute to a lack of incentive for collaboration, leading to an absence of standardised guidance for health information protection when using ICT. This, in turn, may result in unequal and inequitable protection of health information across the provinces. Therefore, a macro-level approach to policy development in this area may hold the greatest promise for enhancing the protection of health information and doing so in a more standardised manner in countries with federal systems of governance.

A Multi-Model and Ai-Based Collegebot Management System (Aicms) for Professional Engineering Colleges

Chatbot is a program which provides human conversation using Artificial Intelligence (AI). Chatbots are designed to work as VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS (VA). They themselves provide a platform for the promotions of the Products and Services online. All Higher Educational Institutes provide the complete information through their internet sites for students, which admits the use of social nets such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and College websites. Total-in-All, in any website, searching functionality is required to search for any information and it includes Social Media Applications like Facebook and WhatsApp regular response are utilized. Therefore, Chatbot is an effective auto-response system, and also an instant messaging platform. In this paper, AICMS an AI-Based CollegeBot management system for professional Engineering college system provide the autoresponse to student queries about the college basic information, class timetables, examination schedules related to academics. Many Queries about the subjects and placements can be inputted to the system. Here the system AICMS is designed with Dialogflow which is supported by the Google API. AI and running as a messenger in the Facebook, which takes the input as the text and voice and it provides the response as text and voice. It gives a quick, accurate response to student and staff queries in an interactive fashion.

Web Content Analysis of University Forestry and Related Natural Resources Landing Webpages in the United States in Relation to Student and Faculty Diversity

Under-representation of minorities and women in natural resources (NR)-related fields is common, both as students and as professionals. The perception of a predominantly white, male student body and workforce is a potential barrier to recruiting women and minorities to Forestry and related-NR fields. The images of “forestry” and “natural resources-related” fields were examined as they would be from a potential student’s perspective looking at university and college websites with these degree program majors at the 80 National Association of University Forest Resource Programs member institutions during in 2016. Results suggest the percentage of women and minorities enrolled explains little variation in a program’s website image content, whereas there is significant image under-representation of minorities in all NR fields and of women on forestry-major webpages. In addition, women and minorities are more likely to be portrayed in a passive image, such as posing on campus, rather than in an active image, such as measuring a tree. Potential students are also less likely to see diverse faculty online. A lack of diversity image inclusion in Forestry and related NR will not help students see themselves in these fields or enhance society’s view of these critical fields for future employment and economic growth.