Peter Schulz*, Department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Keyvan Sagheb*, Department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Andreas Bemsch, Department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Vinay Kumar, Department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Harald Affeldt, Department research and teaching, University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Kathy Taylor, Institute for medical biometry, epidemiology and computer sciences, University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Christian Walter, Department of oral and maxillofacial surgery, University Medical Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany Track: Practice Presentation Topic: Web 2.0-based medical education and learning Presentation Type: Oral presentation Submission Type: Single Presentation Building: LKSC Conference Center Stanford Room: Lower Auditorium 120 Date: 2011-09-17 11:00 AM – 12:30 PM Last modified: 2011-08-15

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Background
E-learning has been recognized during recent years as an essential tool to improve dental education; however, the best approach to implementing computer-assisted learning, as well as avoiding information overload are topics of ongoing discussion. Since 2009, the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery has been developing an interactive e-learning tool called ILKUM to improve the coordination between education content and student learning requirements.
Methods
ILKUM is an interactive e-learning database focussing on the medical and dental curriculum (DC, Lernzielkatalog) and is based on the concept of the ADEE (Association of Dental Education in Europe) and Miller levels. In addition to the classical interactive construction, the system has been modularly implemented to improve reconciliation between DC and the medical performance requirements. The database rests on the technical concept developed for the MySQL Workbench. It runs on a high-performance Unix-based server with a Debian operating system in a Java-runtime environment. These requirements reflect preconditions required to give all users high-speed, authenticated (password) access to the DC-database. To communicate with other university databases, ILKUM is equipped with a Representational State Transfer Interface (REST). Based on this interface, ILKUM communicates via extensible markup language (XML) with the university authentication, mail, video streaming, and calendar servers. Also a web application for the Apple iOS and Google Android operating systems communicates over the REST interface with ILKUM. As an additional feature, ILKUM is able to send real time strings from its system architecture to NCBI Pubmed to obtain the latest scientific literature.
Results
The content modules of the e-learning-database are interactive and directly linked to the appropriate lecture files and e-learning units (clinical cases, short video sequences, scientific articles). This guarantees a quick, topic-oriented method to query the learning content without time and local limitations, as well as direct individual determination of the required knowledge conditions. Since 2009, ILKUM has developed to be the core system for e-learning at the University Medical Center. As of 2011, all dental clinics and 32 medical clinics are using ILKUM for their e-learning activities. There is broad acceptance by the dental and medical students for using ILKUM as the e-learning main portal for their learning and communication requirements.
Conclusions
The broad acceptance and demand on the part of the students show the development potential of this e-learning project. Next steps include structural modifications and enhancements of the database in close co-operation with the students, as well as enlargement of the self-testing capabilities. The newly designed e-learning software is believed to have positively contributed to students’ and academic teachers’ desire to improve and utilize a promising teaching tool. Moreover, it offers a new state of the art “level based” modular learning style