Abstract:

A face-to-face subject on Basic Elements of Biomedical Research of a master in science has been transformed into online teaching and assessment, to improve the learning and academic results of the students of the online Master in Visual Rehabilitation (MRV), as well as the face-to-face master's degrees in Research in Vision Sciences (MICCV), in Ophthalmological Nursing (MESOF) and in Ophthalmological Subspecialties (MESOF), all from the University of Valladolid (Spain).
The aforementioned subject was focused on face-to-face masters, through lectures, while MRV students only had access to the lessons in .pdf format, without having a more detailed explanation of the subject of study. This resulted in the MRV students obtaining a lower average grade than the students of the face-to-face masters.
To transform the Basic Elements of Biomedical Research postgraduate subject into non-face-to-face teaching and assessment and to analyze the degree of success five tasks were carried out:
1 Bibliographic documentation was provided to the students and they were asked to fill in a questionnaire to assess their initial knowledge and guide the lessons;
2 Lessons were taught in a virtual synchronous way and/or in video format with a talking head;
3 An online monitoring system was established through videoconferencing and discussion forums;
4 The skills acquired by the students were evaluated through specific online activities-tasks; and
5 Satisfaction questionnaires were developed and completed by the teachers and students.
This experience has been satisfactory for both students and teachers. However, the degree of initiative and participation of the students has been reduced, compared to the face-to-face lessons, and the academic qualification of the face-to-face students has decreased.
For all these reasons, in the future it will be necessary to implement new strategies for dynamization, communication, and online monitoring of students, which allow them to maintain their attention and motivation, and, thus, correctly assimilate online learning tools and resources.

Keywords:

e-Learning, Satisfaction, Academic results, Face-to-face, Remote, Master subject, Biomedical research.