Developing ICT-based learning support and assessment system for dental education

A dental degree programme is a complex combination not only just to acquire knowledge and skills but also to develop interpersonal skills. It is a challenge for both students and staff to conceptualise studies in larger entities and to emphasise learning as a process. This project's general aim is to support student's development to become a self-guided critical expert. This goal may be achieved by developing creative and inspiring learning and assessment atmosphere for basic, specialist and continuous education. The specific aim is to create a personal e-portfolio program to facilitate utilisation of ICT based interaction and information, e.g. to document text, pictures, film and sound. The program is part of the assessment plan using e-portfolio both summatively and formatively. Intra- and Internet are utilised to build a common data bank also to secure teaching continuity. The project plan was awarded the first prize in the ICT-for-teaching competition at the University of Helsinki. The work is done in co-operation by university and a private company. Project's pilot phase started on spring 2002 involving the first and third year students and their teachers. It continues for the fall term 2002 with two additional student groups. Participants have completed a questionnaire on their pre-project ICT skills and attitudes. Training has been planned and carried out accordingly. The students are given the opportunity to produce a variety of personal versions and their copies for later use. We conclude that it is very important to widen learning assessment methods to support students' continuous development beyond undergraduate programme and to learn to benefit from ICT. E-portfolio used in this project is a digital platform for all these purposes. We are looking forward to collecting more data from our own institute and to working in close international co-operation.