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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Online curriculum garners award
A four-year effort that took the curriculum system at the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Medicine from paper to the computer age has been named Manitoba's best managed project for 2011.
The faculty's Online Portal for Advanced Learning (OPAL) project beat out four other entries at the Project Management Institute's annual awards luncheon Tuesday in Winnipeg. A joint undertaking by the faculty and Online Business Systems, the $1.8-million project converted the faculty's entire curriculum to a web-based system.
Ira Ripstein, associate dean, said the adoption of a computerized curriculum management system (CMS) was overdue.
Ripstein and Keith McConnell, the faculty's director of operations, said the faculty was under pressure from students to convert to a web-based system, and the national accrediting authority for medical education was also starting to require schools to centralize curriculum control.
One of the biggest challenges the 35-member team faced was when the vendor supplying the system withdrew halfway through the project and handed everything over to the faculty. It then had to recruit an outside specialist -- Online Business Systems -- to help design, build and implement a system.
Despite that, they stayed within budget and had the new CMS up and running by August 2009.
Project manager Ben Goldstein said the web-based system has fundamentally changed how students, faculty and staff develop, manage and interact with the curriculum; how exams are developed and administered; how students are assessed and evaluated, and how information is reported.
murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
WRHA projects
Here are the other three projects in this year's Project of the Year competition, all involving Winnipeg Regional Health Authority:
Outlook Project: The WRHA replaced three email/calender systems that had been in use for 10 years with one common platform that is now used by all WRHA personnel. The biggest challenge: helping personnel to "overcome the fear of change".
Emergency Department Development and Relocation: A joint undertaking by the WRHA and Victoria Hospital to build a new emergency room and move the department without disrupting service. After years of planning and consultation, the move was completed last September.
Regional Pharmacy Expansion: A joint project between the WRHA and Manitoba e-Health to convert pharmacy operations at the Victoria and Grace hospitals to a computer-based, regional pharmacy system developed by the WRHA. The conversion was completed, on time and under budget, in December 2009.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 9, 2011 B8
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