Change has been a constant companion for those of us in the College of Human Medicine these past few years. Our class size has doubled; we have new educational programs; our footprint across the state has been transformed. Examples of change are numerous.

It is within this context that I want to announce some changes related to medical education research and development. From the development side, we have renamed our Faculty Development Seminar Series; the new name is the OMERAD Seminar Series. The main reason for the change was cosmetic, but nonetheless important. Historically, many of the workshops addressed topics of concern to faculty and professional staff, giving rise to confusion about who could attend. We are hoping the name change will lessen the confusion.

More information about upcoming workshops in the OMERAD Seminar Series is available elsewhere in this newsletter. Later this semester we will be launching a survey to gauge the interests of faculty and staff for various topics related to medical education and scholarship. We will also try to gain a better sense of interest in various types of program formats and delivery models. I hope you will take a few minutes to complete the survey when you receive an e-mail invitation to participate.

Another change that occurred this summer was an end to the use of the consent form that was provided to medical students to obtain their consent to participate in medical education scholarship. This model of obtaining consent was developed in collaboration with the MSU human research protection program (MSU-HRPP) and implemented in 2000.   This year, at the request of MSU-HRPP, we were asked to consider an alternative strategy that enhances the protections for students and is not administratively burdensome. Over the summer we have implemented an honest broker system. The honest broker acts independently from the investigators to assure that datasets used for educational scholarship have been anonymized.  OMERAD will provide this service to investigators using one or more educational datasets to provide maximum protection for students. This process should also simplify the approval process for IRB applications related to educational research. More information about the purpose of the honest broker system can be found at: http://www.irb.pitt.edu/exempt/honestbroker.htm.

 OMERAD SEMINAR SERIES - FALL 2011

- MAKING POSTERS IN POWERPOINT 

Date: October 24, 2011 

Time: 4:00 to 6:00 pm

Places: A-211 E. Fee Hall, East Lansing, AND via Web-Based Desktop Videoconferencing

Cost: Free to all CHM Faculty and Staff at all CHM communities

Are you presenting a poster at a professional meeting soon? If so, this hands-on workshop might be just what you need to get started making your poster. A short didactic presentation will be given first, followed by an opportunity to work on your poster, with people available to answer your questions and to solve your problems.

Because we will not be teaching basic PowerPoint skills in the workshop, we recommend that, before the workshop, you complete the online tutorial called Creating Posters in PowerPoint: A Video Tutorial at :            http://omerad.msu.edu/meded/poster_intro.php 

Email us at omerad@msu.edu to register for the session or if you have  questions.  Participation in person in A-211 E. Fee is limited to 18.For more details on this workshop, go to the OMERAD Seminar Series page at :    http://omerad/seminars/index.php    

- INTRODUCTION TO PREZI: A Web-Based Presentation Program  

Date:  November 21, 2011

Time: 4:00 to 6:00 pm

Places: A-211 E.Fee Hall, East Lansing, AND via Web-Based Desktop Videoconferencing 

Cost: Free to all CHM Faculty and Staff at all CHM communities 

Tired of using PowerPoint for your lectures? Looking for another tool to create more engaging presentations?

This workshop provides an introduction to Prezi, a free web-based software for creating presentations that offers an alternative to traditional PowerPoint. Prezi utilizes a whiteboard canvas to create non-linear presentations where users can zoom in and out of a visual map in any order. Prezi presentations can include audio, video, images, and text and can also be set up to navigate through pre-defined paths.

In this introductory workshop participants will: 

• Learn the basic program's menus and themes
• Learn to move, scale and rotate objects
• Insert hyperlinks, images, and media
• Create animated motion pathways
• Share and publish a Prezi presentation

To get an idea of what Prezi can do, go to: http://prezi.com/

For prerequisites and registration details on this workshop, go to the OMERAD Seminar Series page at http://omerad/seminars/index.php