The "Medical Education Course Compass" results from a research project conducted in Switzerland. Our research presented an exemplary approach to cataloguing medical education courses and their content using a free and open-access methodology. It sought to improve the clarity and availability of information about medical education offerings through a standardized and interactive presentation.
A research paper (link following upon publication) will explain our research methods and their application in the Swiss context.
Our findings detail the diversity and accessibility challenges of medical education courses in Switzerland, highlighting the innovative solution provided by our Obsidian-based platform, compass.siwf.ch.
This repository serves as a template for potential adaptors to base similar efforts to ours. We strive for transparency and accessibility, which is why we created this template for easy adoption into the tools we also utilized (Obsidian.md and Obsidian Publish). However, given the loose nature of our "database" being Markdown files, this repository can also be a starting point for use with any other tool.
- Interactive Course Database: Obsidian lets you structure and assess your course data interactively. This is a helpful and accessible method for browsing qualitative data, such as course information.
- Competence and Keyword Mapping: Mapping specific competencies to individual courses as their own keywords represented as Markdown files, viewable through Obsidian's graph visualization feature and hover functionality, allows for a clear and accessible method of mapping competencies to courses and vice versa.
- Multilingual Support: Obsidian's alias functionality allows for the use of this template in multilingual settings.
- Open Access: The database structure and content are freely accessible under a CC-BY 4.0 license.
This repository provides templates and documentation for researchers and educators interested in replicating or building upon our methodology and platform.
- Download and install Obsidian from obsidian.md/download.
- If you want to use this template: Click the "Use this template" button on this page and clone the repo.
- Open Obsidian.
- Click "Open" next to the "Open folder as vault" label.
- Select the folder you cloned the repo to.
Please refer to Obisidian's documentation for further info on how to use Obsidian and how to publish your Medical Education Course Compass using Obsidian Publish. You are now set to interact with and import your own course data.
Guidelines on how to use the templates, adapt the competence mapping, and utilize the graph visualization features are provided, ensuring users can effectively navigate and contribute to the project. Refer to each template file for competencies (keywords) and courses.
This project is released under a CC-BY 4.0 license (free access and modification with attribution).
We especially thank our contributors and the SIWF/ISFM for their support in this initiative. We also acknowledge the medical educators across Switzerland who participated in our survey process.