Scenario
Before starting to use microscopy equipment in the facility, students/staff need to understand the basic concepts of Bioimaging. Previously, training for this had been delivered in person, in groups of three or four people, with sessions repeated on request. For example, if a student would not be accessing the lab until later in the term and needed a refresher, a session would be put on for them.
This was extremely time-consuming for the Experimental Officer so they contacted the Science Digital Education team to ask about the creation of a course to complement their in-person induction to the facility. It would also allow them to concentrate on assisting students with their experiments, rather than repeating the same information time and time again.
Solution
Using Rise 360 and Genially, a short online course was created in collaboration between the Science Digital Education team, the Chief Experimental Officer (CEO), and the Experimental Officer in the department. Genially is an online tool that is used to create presentations, interactive images, infographics, gamification, quizzes, and enrich them with interactivity and animation effects in seconds.
The course covers key elements of microscopy and best practice to allow for efficient and effective imaging in order to generate publication standard data. It takes them through each of these important concepts with images, videos, and activities, so they are ready to get the best out of the facility and their imaging experiments.
Branching exercises, used to determine the correct microscope to use, and short quizzes, to check knowledge with immediate feedback, were created with the use of Genially. This added extra elements to the course than the activities available in Rise 360.
Creating an online course gave the added benefit of it being available all year round, therefore it could also be used as a refresher course, should the students need to remember certain elements, prior to accessing the lab and carrying out their experiments.
This course was added to Oracle Learn, a central location but with the ability to restrict access to only Biosciences staff and students but also with the ability of providing analytics, on enrolments and completions.
For the first few months, Oracle Learn reports, showing enrolments and completions, will be created weekly for the department by the Science Digital Education team. Following this, the reports will be created monthly. These reports will allow the department to track access to this resource and ensure the students accessing the lab have the skills and knowledge to do so.
Our Collaboration and Development Process
In order to create the content for the course, effectively and efficiently, we shared a structured Word template with the team in the department. This ensured the developers could quickly see how the course would be composed (i.e. the title and content for each section, which interactive elements the departmental team may want to use and the content for those), ready to add them to the Rise 360 course.
Once the initial content was added to Rise 360, we used a mixture of Review 360 and Teams Group chat to relay updates, reviews and feedback between the developers and the department team.
Quickly adding the initial content to the elearning platform gave the development team the ability to see in situ how their initial Word document of course material would appear to students taking the course. This allowed them to start making further decisions on the layout and structure.
Before the course was sent to the Oracle Learn team, independent reviewers from the department were asked to feedback on the course. Once action was taken on the final round of reviews the course was sent to the Oracle Learn team, alongside a completed document outlining the relevant information they needed to be able to add it to the system.
Images of the Interactive Map
A gallery of screenshot images from the Bioimaging Rise 360 course, showing the welcome screen, a page about Magnification and a page about Bit Depth.
Quick Tip​
If our scoping exercise determines Rise 360 is a solution for your request, you may find it useful to familiarise yourself with the types of interactions that can be embedded into the course on the Rise 360: Lesson and Block Types support page. These are not the only interactions that can be added, but are a great starting point when designing and developing the course.
Next Steps
If you would like to find out more about the features of Rise 360 and have a scenario in mind, please contact us.