The Impact of E-Learning in Medical Education
Abstract
The authors provide an introduction to e-learning and its role in medical education by outlining key terms, the components of e-learning, the evidence for its effectiveness, faculty development needs for implementation, evaluation strategies for e-learning and its technology, and how e-learning might be considered evidence of academic scholarship. E-learning is the use of Internet technologies to enhance knowledge and performance. E-learning technologies offer learners control over content, learning sequence, pace of learning, time, and often media, allowing them to tailor their experiences to meet their personal learning objectives. In diverse medical education contexts, e-learning appears to be at least as effective as traditional instructor-led methods such as lectures. Students do not see e-learning as replacing traditional instructor-led training but as a complement to it, forming part of a blended-learning strategy. A developing infrastructure to support e-learning within medical education includes repositories, or digital libraries, to manage access to e-learning materials, consensus on technical standardization, and methods for peer review of these resources. E-learning presents numerous research opportunities for faculty, along with continuing challenges for documenting scholarship. Innovations in e-learning technologies point toward a revolution in education, allowing learning to be individualized (adaptive learning), enhancing learners' interactions with others (collaborative learning), and transforming the role of the teacher. The integration of e-learning into medical education can catalyze the shift toward applying adult learning theory, where educators will no longer serve mainly as the distributors of content, but will become more involved as facilitators of learning and assessors of competency.
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The ability to use GAI to create a variety of educational resources with less effort is a key factor in promoting adaptive learning.
“The ability to use GAI to create a variety of educational resources with less effort is also a key factor in promoting adaptive learning [40].”
From Developing Medical Education Curriculum Reform Strategies to Address the Impact of Generative AI: Qualitative Study (2023) · cites this paper as [40]
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- Authors
- Ruiz, J. G., Mintzer, M. J., & Leipzig, R. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Miami (US)
- Miami VA Healthcare System (US)
- Corresponding author
- Ruiz, Jorge G.
- Venue
- Academic Medicine
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2006-03
- Volume
- 81
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 207-212
- ISSN
- 1040-2446 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2145239266
- Cited by
- 2,240
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 50 · 2025: 80 · 2024: 114 · 2023: 125 · 2022: 198 · 2021: 225 · 2020: 176 · 2019: 124 · 2018: 124 · 2017: 109 · 2016: 114 · 2015: 112 · 2014: 117 · 2013: 136 · 2012: 117
- FWCI
- 7.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Academic Medicine (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Defense
- Florida Agency for Health Care Administration
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Innovations in Medical Education
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Educational Technology and E-Learning
- Social Sciences › Education › Online and Blended Learning
- Keywords
- online learning, medical education, blended learning, faculty development, e-learning evaluation, digital libraries, adaptive learning, cooperative learning, andragogy, e-learning effectiveness
- MeSH terms
- Competency-Based Education, Curriculum, Education, Medical, Humans, Knowledge, Internet
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