Whether it’s due to conflicting commitments, the pursuit of a specific field, or interest in a department’s particular expertise, more and more students enroll in online learning coursework each year.

But despite advantages like convenience and greater access, surveys show less than half of students currently consider their online coursework better than a classroom experience. Almost all students view these courses as less effective than in-person education.

This offers educators an opportunity to attract and retain higher enrollment by exceeding these expectations, meeting the demand for an improved online knowledge exchange. It’s not just about weathering today’s trends — even as the campus dynamic changes, online coursework will continue to be cemented into the educational ecosystem. 

To stay competitive, departments need to deliver efficient, versatile, student-centered online coursework that addresses what students and faculty need to succeed. Program elements must include things like:

• Certified quality content that’s customized to students’ goals and university ethos
• Efficient, organized, and uninterrupted course administration
• High academic standards and integrity 
• Accessibility and technological adaptability 
• On-demand, personalized support

This standard needs to be consistent as well. From course to course and semester to semester, students expect a reliable learning platform free from logistical obstacles or ever-changing course navigation.  

As you organize your department’s human disease course materials for today’s online learner, you need a partner that can preempt and overcome these hurdles. 

Partnering with the right vendor means your faculty and staff spend less time managing a human disease course and more time developing student success. A course’s efficiency, quality, and reliability help your department meet student demands, maintaining current enrollment figures and attracting greater numbers.

Crucial Elements for Human Disease Online Courses

Students choose your department for its expertise, value, and quality. Online learning simply integrates technology to transform how your curriculum is delivered. Done right, this platform isn’t just a back-up or consolation to in-person classes. It can build a better student experience that results in greater outcomes. 

Human disease online course offerings should meet this set of six standards that prioritize a student-focused knowledge exchange and make it easier for your department to administer consistent quality.

1.  Customizable Courses

Standardization of human disease coursework helps ensure professionals uniformly meet the challenges of real-world practice wherever they establish their careers. Disease doesn’t see boundaries or borders, and healthcare education needs to stem from a unified front that can apply across the globe. 

This educational consistency also stands to confront a growing demand for healthcare professionals around the world, extending and enhancing skillsets to mobilize a more well-rounded and efficient workforce. 

But context still matters. Your students have independent needs and goals themselves. Today’s online learning technology allows educators to provide students with structural and functional understanding of human diseases while personalizing course delivery. 

From material presentation to knowledge evaluations, your online learning vendor should be able to customize and adapt your department’s course to fit its students’ needs. 

2.  Learning Management System

A Learning Management System (LMS) is the backbone of an efficient online course. Like a teaching assistant, secretary, and administrator all-in-one, an LMS:

• Organizes all course content in one fully accessible location
• Enables the use of both prerecorded (asynchronous) or real-time (synchronous) content
• Optimizes material for any device
• Tracks student progress and performance
• Administers exams and quizzes
• Ensures the department complies with health education regulations
• Facilitates communication, encouraging a social learning atmosphere

All of the information instructors and students require is housed right in the LMS, which ultimately saves the department money and time. 

An LMS’s functionality also enhances an instructor’s ability to monitor student performance. With robust reporting and analytics tools, educators can ensure milestones are met while pinpointing where students struggle.

This monitoring can help inform changes to course content throughout the semester. With the right platform, instructors can easily apply tweaks that are instantly transmitted to all those enrolled, ensuring students get the most up-to-date information and resources required to better understand complex human disease topics. 

You can offer your human disease course through either a built-in LMS or an open-source, adaptable learning system like Canvas or Moodle. Each option has its advantages, so having access to both through a vendor offers more flexibility to design a course that best suits staff and students.

3.  Exam Proctoring

Your students’ progress and merit are only as strong as the integrity behind course assessments. Many online courses require in-person exams, but this can negatively impact the student experience, limiting digital learning benefits like accessibility and convenience. 

Online proctoring offers the best of both worlds. Integrated directly into the LMS, this service allows for student flexibility while ensuring instructor peace of mind by:

• Deterring, detecting, and preventing cheating
• Authenticating identities
• Protecting exam content

However, it can be time-consuming for instructors to schedule, conduct, and review proctor sessions, so it’s best to choose a course vendor that manages the whole process for you. This ensures student accountability while saving instructor time with resources that enhance online learning like:

• Monthly analytics reports
• Easy exam creation processes
• Real-time technical support for test-takers 
• Ongoing training tools

4.  Cross-Device Accessibility 

A study from the University of Central Florida has shown that students believe mobile devices enhance their learning experience, offering:

• Access to coursework from anywhere at any time
• Improved communication with instructors and peers
• Enhanced work quality and access to knowledge in their field

Surveys show that at least 67 percent of college students today use their mobile devices to complete course-related activities, whether they’re reviewing lecture notes, checking grades, or submitting assignments on the go. 

If your human disease course content isn’t optimized for mobile devices, its value as a digital learning tool is undermined. By studying online, students benefit from choosing their own learning environment, but they’re still limited if the full functionality of coursework is tied to a desktop.

Mobile-optimized platforms also improve instructors’ responsiveness to urgent student questions and enable them to extend virtual office hours without having to be physically present in an office.

Make sure that your online course vendor prioritizes this cross-device accessibility to avoid frustrations and lapses in communication that can jeopardize student satisfaction.  

5.  Certified High-Quality Content

All of the virtual bells and whistles in the world won’t matter much if a human disease course isn’t backed by certified, high-quality materials. 

This material should comprehensively reflect your department’s goals, providing your students with the most up-to-date, holistic training available to prepare them to enter the healthcare workforce with their best foot forward.

By understanding the anatomic and physiologic changes involved in common and important diseases — and the clinical methods of diagnosis — students should be equipped to recognize and direct treatment for disease areas like: 

• Heredity and pregnancy
• Infection and pathology
• Communicable diseases
• Compromised immunity

It’s not just about the content itself, however. Online learning offers opportunities for students to do more than memorize and regurgitate information. With the right content delivery, you can ensure your students understand how to apply the knowledge they gain to everyday healthcare challenges.

At Caduceus, our Survey of Human Disease and Pathophysiology Course makes full use of the virtual space to strengthen students’ critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, forging better knowledge development through:

• Multi-media lectures that use high-quality medical and scientific imagery to illustrate key concepts — authored by respected and experienced healthcare educators 
• Interactive content like knowledge banks with hundreds of digital flashcards, 3D models, and engagement activities
• Self-administered quizzes for students to track their own comprehension, progression, and material retention 
• Timed exams that are configurable and flexible for both instructors and students — backed by the accountability promise of Caduceus Proctoring

6.  Ongoing Customer Support

Like anything else, online learning has its day-to-day mishaps. But unlike a traditional classroom setting, your instructors and students can have access to a full virtual support team to address any technical issues, any time — as long as you’ve got the right vendor. 

In April 2020, more than 75 percent of college and university presidents indicated that faculty and technological readiness for online learning was an immediate concern. Build confidence in your educators and students alike by ensuring your course runs uninterrupted with a vendor that promises:

• Direct student-to-support communication
• 24/7 instructor access to a designated representative familiar with their course
• Virtual TA assistance
• Anytime course customization

Boost Enrollment with Better Education Tools

Healthcare education is going digital. Stay competitive by ensuring your human disease course materials leverage a full suite of online learning benefits, from flexibility to easy access, customization, and continuous expert support. 

At Caduceus International Publishing, it’s our goal to provide students with coursework that meets this set of standards. With high-quality, interactive content built around a student-centric knowledge exchange, your students gain the tools and resources they need to face today’s challenges as a healthcare professional. 

Get in touch to try out a 30-day free trial to see how our managed services will improve your department’s healthcare education outcomes.