Note: The conference is aware that the closed captioning for this video does not meet the level of accuracy that we strive for. This will be addressed as soon as possible.
Medical students are key stakeholders of Open Education as Open Education Resources can bridge the existing gaps in medical education and as they are future researchers and authors who can contribute to the movement. International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA), representing 1.3 million medical students from over 120 countries, is a vigorous proponent of Open Education and has made the following efforts.
IFMSA advocates Open Education based on the two policy documents; ‘Open Access, Open Education and Open Data (2017)’ and ‘Open Science (2020)’. The policy documents are adopted in the General Assembly Plenaries by the 130+ National Member Organizations (NMOs). According to our biannual surveys, more than 70% of National Officers have read the policy documents and 50 out of 125 NMOs stated they work on Open Access, Open Education and Open Data by campaigns, partnerships, advocacy and other means. Along with encouraging NMOs’ activities, IFMSA has facilitated more than 10 international sessions on Open Science during the past year and organized campaigns as an effort to increase members’ awareness of this issue.
IFMSA also creates and shares Open Educational Resources. As future healthcare professionals and clinicians, it is important for medical students to have knowledge on topics such as research methods, global health and sexual orientation. However, unfortunately the current medical curricula rarely cover the mentioned topics. In order to fill in these blind spots, IFMSA has created educational activity toolkits and peer-to-peer training manuals on various topics, including research ethics, study designs, global health and gender identity. The average rating for the toolkits was 8.36/10 and 55.6% of NMOs reported that they have used the educational activity toolkits. IFMSA has also started an online training platform where the participants can freely join and take courses on human rights, research theory, global health, etc. Along with creating OER, IFMSA shares useful resources through platforms such as the research resources database.
To ensure the sustainability and future of Open Education, it is imperative to involve students in the movement. IFMSA’s strategy to foster a culture of Open Education can be adopted in student organizations with similar goals.
After participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Get insight on the IFMSA’s structure and student-led advocacy strategy on Open Education
- Analyze the construction of Open Educational Resources and student-led strategies of their own to accelerate the growth of the Open Movement in their respective communities and bridge the gap of their professional education.
- Critically reflect on the role of peer-assisted education as a part of Open Ed.
Disclosure: This session was added to the program through special approval by the Steering Committee after the call for proposals closed.
