MedEdPORTAL Lets Educators Find, Share Teaching Resources

Family medicine educators, take note: A new Web-based resource from the Association of American Medical Colleges can help you locate peer-reviewed teaching materials that span the continuum from undergraduate to continuing medical education. The AAMC resource, known as MedEdPORTAL (Providing Online Resources to Advance Learning), also allows faculty members to submit educational content they've developed for formal peer review.

Whether you're looking for video tutorials or interactive "virtual patient" vignettes to use in your academic department or you've created faculty development materials or assessment instruments you would like to share, MedEdPORTAL's database may have just what you need. The searchable database currently houses more than 250 indexed resources, including more than 100 virtual patient applications.

MedEdPORTAL also offers a customizable home page -- "MyMedEdPORTAL" -- that allows users to locate recently published items in their areas of interest; the system also permits users to track their own submissions and even see which institutions or individuals have accessed those resources.

Another perk: Users pay little or nothing to use the resources cataloged in the system, according to Robby Reynolds of the AAMC Division of Medical Education. "Part of the requirement to submit materials to MedEdPORTAL is that submitters are willing to share those resources for free to anyone for medical education purposes," says Reynolds. "If there are duplication or shipping costs or costs for reproduction of the materials, they can charge a minimal fee. But they're not allowed to charge for production."

MedEdPORTAL respects the original owners of all submissions and protects the rights of authors by working with them to create a copyright usage license that governs how their materials may be used.

AAMC is working to improve the MedEdPORTAL application and invites comments from users of the system. After you've visited the site, e-mail your suggestions to mededportal@aamc.org.