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Online educational resource on ageing (ERA)

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A free online educational resource (Educational Resource on Ageing, ERA) has been developed by the University of Dundee in collaboration with the National Initiative for Care of the Elderly in Toronto (a Canadian government funded network of researchers, practitioners and students dedicated to implementing evidence based quality care for older adults).

ERA has been ‘live’ and accessible internationally since early in 2009.

A bank of “best of 5” questions based around common clinical scenarios of later life has been generated. A random subset of questions is presented at each login, and the ordering of the answers is also randomised. Once a section has been completed, the correct answers are given together with an evidence-based web link to support further learning around the topic.

Sample of the Questions to be found on ERA:

1 of 3:
Which statement best describes the disposable soma theory of ageing?

a) a set of genes for ageing causes a programmed loss of fitness in an organisim once past reproductive age
b) The energy cost of maintaining a body beyond reproductive years can be better spent by other individuals to reproduce
c) Individual cells are disposable when the burden of mutations exceed the ability of the cell to repair itself
d) Physiological adaptations that are beneficial at a younger age have deleterious effects at older ages
e) Reproduction leads to a reduction in lifespan of a given organism

3 of 3
Your chance of living for an extra year is lowest at the age of:
a) 82
b) 97
c) 107
d) 62
e) 92

ERA has been piloted on 88 UK clinicians in training. Over 90% of the initial feed back has been strongly positive.

We are working to further improve the tool. We had initially presented 23 questions in a single assessment. Some users felt this was too onerous for one sitting, so we have now divided the topics to provide two shorter assessments.

The development of ERA is particularly timely given that the first diet of the knowledge based assessment (KBA), which trainees in Geriatric Medicine were required to take, was in 2009.

We are very grateful for the questions contributed by James Shaw, Angela Wilkinson, Sarah Henderson, Dirk Habicht, Susan Shenkin, Adam Gordon, Simon Conroy, Syed Zaman. We thank David Walker from the Virtual Learning Environment at the University of Dundee for setting up the resource and making it available in its present format.

We hope the website proves to be a useful resource not only to the trainees but also for other clinicians wishing to develop and test their expertise on clinical aspects of ageing. Feedback on ERA is sought after each login – please let us know how we can further improve this learning tool.

To access:
http://caa-02.dundee.ac.uk /q4/perception.dll
username: (see printed version)
password: (see printed version)

System requirements are:
Platform: Windows 2000, XP, Vista or MacOSX
Hardware: Minimum 512 MB of RAM, 1 G of free disk space
Browser: Internet Explorer 6.0 and above (recommended) - JavaScript &
Cookies must be enabled.
Network: Broadband (Good) or Local Area Network (Best)

Deepa Sumukadas
Miles Witham
Marion McMurdo
Ageing & Health
Division of Medical Sciences
Ninewells Hospital & Medical School
University of Dundee

BGS Newsletter, July 2009
Issue 22 ISSN 1748-6343 22
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