E-learning in gastroenterology—What have we learned so far?

More than two years have now passed since the United European Gastroenterology (UEG) E-learning initiative was restructured to account for the growth of the project and reflect the opportunities provided by online learning. Since then, UEG E-learning has gone from strength to strength, with more than half a million page views in 2016 alone. Major achievements include the introduction of new content formats, the variety of topics covered, and—most important–the number of users being reached. This article summarizes the E-learning experience so far and provides a glimpse of future activities and a short guide for using UEG E-learning resources for personal development and departmental benefit.

The E-learning culture

If asked to recollect a learning experience, the answer will often be attending a lecture, reading a textbook, or bedside teaching. Web browsing has established itself as a means to finding citations and articles, but is less intuitively associated with learning per se. This may be for several reasons, such as source reliability, availability, and cost. UEG E-learning has already proven successful because users are aware of its availability, quality, and relevance to their needs. This awareness has been facilitated by UEG’s Young Gastrointestinal (GI) Network and the Young Talent Group (YTG), both of which foster a sense of community among young professionals in GI practice and research, with real-time interactions and notifications through social media. A good example of how awareness of UEG E-learning material is being driven is the article describing the mistakes to avoid when managing perianal disease,¹ reaching more than 9500 individuals within less than 10 days of its release.

Identifying changes in the way we consume data is an important part of the UEG E-learning team’s work. Perhaps most representative of this data-consumer cultural change is the fact that, in 2016, more than one-third of devices used to enter the platform were mobile devices, in accordance with our 2015 vision of “E-learning for E-living (or “A personal perspective on kung fu”).”² Developing new content formats that reflect these changes (e.g. diverging from the classic one-hour course format) is a priority, and our efforts so far have been well received.

In addition to growing user engagement, we have also seen the tremendous motivation of authors to participate in UEG’s E-learning initiative by contributing manuscripts and online courses. This contribution cannot be taken for granted, as writing manuscripts for peer-reviewed journals may be considered more rewarding when an academic curriculum vitae is reviewed. The fact that we have seen such great enthusiasm from contributors reflects the widespread reach of e-learning activities and UEG’s commitment to promoting education and training.

The impact of UEG E-learning

A useful feature of E-learning is that certain measures are easy to quantify. In 2016, the UEG Education website had more than half a million page views, with an average of more than 1800 views per day (these data do not include the entire UEG website through which delegates register for UEG week). There has been a marked increase in page views compared with the previous year—during the last quarter of 2016 page views increased by nearly 90% compared with the last quarter of 2015.

The number of unique users of UEG online courses in December 2016 was more than three times greater than in December 2015. Several UEG online courses have been built around lectures given at the UEG Summer School. The web-based platform has the added value of allowing a larger number of people to access such excellent content, with more than 10 times the number of trainees who attended UEG’s 2016 Summer School accessing an online course, reflecting the synergy between different these two programs.

The impact of UEG E-learning can also be seen from a geographical point of view, as users originate from 115 different countries, with about one-third originating from North America. Clearly, the platform has been successful in disseminating educational material to the GI community at large.

Topic and format selection

Potentially the most important factor in E-learning is the user’s motivation, so choosing the right topics and content formats remains paramount. As previously described,^2,3 a choice was made to expand beyond providing one-hour courses, and additional formats, such as the “Mistakes in …” series and “Decide on the spot” articles were developed. Encouragingly, thousands of page views have been achieved for both clinical and basic science topics (e.g. mouse models of inflammatory bowel disease⁴). The number of online courses has also expanded, and both GI and liver-related topics have been covered and well received.

E-learning 2017

With multiple new online courses, “Mistakes in …” manuscripts, “Decide on the Spot” articles and blogs going online, 2017 is poised to be another exciting year for E-learners. This year’s coverage will again span clinical, endoscopy and research-related topics, in both gastroenterology and hepatology.

In addition, the search engine for the content-rich UEG Education library continues to undergo updates and enhancements, improving the ability to identify items of interest (e.g. presentations, abstracts, UEG Education articles, Standards & Guidelines).

Using UEG E-learning to your advantage

Early-stage clinical and research fellows can use UEG E-learning independently to improve their knowledge base (online courses), learn about the latest advances (Education library and blogs) and benefit from the experience and perspective of leaders in the field (“Mistakes in …” series). Senior professionals may also be interested in advances and perspective, and may choose to include UEG E-learning resources as parts of their fellows’ local or regional training programs. Online courses may also be used to earn Continued Medical Education (CME) points. A more detailed description of the UEG Education website, resources, and formats for individual and group training has been previously described.³

A team effort

UEG E-learning is very much a team effort. The core team consists of Charles Murray (director), Natalie Wood (lead editor), Bjorn Rembacken, Christen Rune Stensvold, Rui Castro and Tomer Adar (web editors), along with Ulrike Kapp-Popov (project manager), but the achievements described rely on the support of many others: our contributors, the UEG Council and Executive Committee, the UEG Education Committee and Summer School Course Directors, Member Societies, the YTG and Young GI Network, and, of course, the GI community at large.