Global Ranking of Management- and Clinical-centered E-health Journals

This study presents a ranking list of 35 management- and 28 clinical-centered e-health academic journals developed based on a survey of 398 active researchers from 46 countries. Among the management-centered journals, the researchers ranked Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association and Journal of Medical Internet Research as A+ journals; among the clinical-focused journals, they ranked BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making and IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics as A+ journals. We found that journal longevity (years in print) had an effect on ranking scores such that longer standing journals had an advantage over their more recent counterparts, but this effect was only moderately significant and did not guarantee a favorable ranking position. Various stakeholders may use this list to advance the state of the e-health discipline. There are both similarities and differences between the present ranking and the one developed earlier in 2010

Evaluation of Higher Diploma in Medical Librarianship Programme offered by SQU Department of Information Studies in the Light of the Professional Competences Approved by MLA

The paper aims to evaluate the programme of Higher Diploma in Medical Librarianship offered by the Department of Information Studies, Sultan Qaboos University, in the light of the professional competences approved by the Medical Library Association (MLA). The process covers the offered courses and their instructors, labs and existing sources of information in this area. The study is based on surveys conducted to identify the competences and specifications of medical librarians as defined by medical informatics professional associations. It has applied the analytic, descriptive approach to assessing the programme’s course descriptions and the extent to which the courses conform to the professional competences mentioned above. The findings suggest that the courses have achieved 94.11% of such competences. Recommendations have been made as to ways and means of programme improvement and applicability in other information studies departments in the Arab world. professional competence

MSIS 2016 global competency model for graduate degree programs in information systems

[Extract] This document, “MSIS 2016: Global Competency Model for Graduate Degree Programs in Information Systems”, is the latest in the series of reports that provides guidance for degree programs in the Information Systems (IS) academic discipline. MSIS 2016 is the seventh collaborative effort between ACM and AIS (following IS’97, IS 2002, and IS 2010 at the undergraduate level; MSIS 2000 and MSIS 2006 at the graduate level; and CC 2005 as an integrative document).(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Educating Critical Scientists: Critical Science Literacy in University STEM Subjects

Much of our interaction with the world is overtly influenced by science or the products of science. The forward progress of science can seem overwhelming and relentless, leading many to adopt a fatalistic attitude to scientific progress: you’re either with science or you’re against it. This polarisation of attitudes is unhelpful and obscures the fact that science is a human endeavour and thus has human aims and values. What these values are is rarely explored by lay citizens, communicators or even scientists themselves. In a society where science plays a dominant role, the practitioners of science have an obligation to acknowledge the human aims and values inherent in their practice. This thesis asks: are scientists being educated to think critically about the human aims and values in science during their undergraduate education? In order to provide a framework for thinking critically about these human aspects of science, the thesis draws heavily on Susanna Priest’s Critical Science Literacy (CSL). The research investigates whether there is compulsory CSL content present at top science universities by looking at whether it is possible for a student to fulfil the requirements for a major and not encounter CSL. Publicly available descriptions of paper content were collected and then analysed for Critical Science Literacy content in three areas: sociology of science, philosophy of science and publicity of science. It was found that the majority of majors at these universities did not contain compulsory CSL content. Studying a science at a top university does not guarantee training for thinking critically about science. Variation was found across disciplines and across universities with regards to the amount of compulsory CSL. It was also found that majors that had more strictly prescribed requirements had more compulsory CSL on average. This thesis renews the arguments for the critical education of future scientists. We found that despite calls for ubiquitous critical education in science, the reality falls short of the rhetoric

A curricula-based comparison of biomedical and health informatics programs in the USA

The field of Biomedical and Health Informatics (BMHI) continues to define itself, and there are many educational programs offering ‘informatics’ degrees with varied foci. The goal of this study was to develop a scheme for systematic comparison of programs across the entire BMHI spectrum and to identify commonalities among informatics curricula

Global Pharmacy: A Comparative Exploration and Analysis of Initial Professional Education

The quality of initial professional pharmacy education (IPPE) is receiving growing attention in the development of modern health policy. This is due to the gradually extended role of pharmacists, a global shortage of pharmacy workforce and their skill-mix imbalances, all of which require improvements to respond to the expanding and ever-changing population health needs. To achieve enhanced and equitable quality worldwide, evidence that can be used as a global basis for identifying gaps and challenges to assist strengthening IPPE is demanded. The purpose of this research was to generate evidence to construct the first global map of the attributes of quality IPPE for assisting the improvement of IPPE across nations. The research questions what are the differences and commonalities in the current IPPE practices worldwide, and if there are globally shared attributes for high quality IPPE, which can support further development of professional roles. A mixed-methods approach was implemented to investigate personal and institutional factors in a global context. To seek students’ factors in the quality IPPE, a global online survey on students’ learning processes and experiences was conducted, resulting in 4,105 student responses from 78 countries. To investigate teaching and institutional attributes of IPPE, an attached email global survey on IPPE institutions and programmes and a curriculum content analysis were conducted, which compared country-level institutional information from 110 countries and territories as well as contrasting in-depth curricula content data from 16 countries. The combined findings provide measures of current IPPE practices across nations. This includes differences in approaches to learning between regions and nations; pharmacy model to foster the adoption of deep approach to learning; global variation regarding capacity, provision, and regulations; and variation in curricula content when contrasting science and practice components. The thesis provides evidence for a policy review of IPPE to assist with enhancing global quality