Andrzej A. Kononowicz, Inga Hege, Martin Adler, Bas de Leng, Jeroen Donkers, Irena Roterman
Integration Scenarios of Virtual Learning Environments with Virtual Patients Systems

The role of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) like Moodle, OLAT, Dokeos or Blackboard is to aggregate educational content and to provide a communication platform for students and their teachers in e-learning and blended learning scenarios. A VLE offers usually a collection of general purpose tools for content authoring, remote collaboration, assessment and user management. The progress in computer-aided education, as well as the raising expectations of students require stepping up in the e-learning services beyond the generic tools offered by traditional VLEs. In the very specific field of medical education such services include e.g. presentation of virtual patient cases, tools for distant medical consultations or medical workflows authoring. A virtual patient (VP) is defined as „an interactive computer simulation of real-life clinical scenarios for the purpose of medical training, education, or assessment”. A great variety of virtual patient systems, differing significantly in the applied data models, navigation methods, and supported learning designs is available. This paper focuses on the presentation of three practical examples of standard-based integration of virtual patient systems into the existing e-learning infrastructure of a medical faculty.

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