In 2006 the first capacity building sessions on Clinical Trials were held in France, Italy, Spain and Denmark eventually being offered at the EURORDIS Summer School in Barcelona.

In 2008, the EURORDIS Summer School expanded on these topics and more.

These sessions enabled us to collect comments, experiences and expectations in order to progressively optimise the e-learning tools and their content

These sessions enabled us to collect comments, experiences and expectations in order to progressively optimise the e-learning tools and their content

Facilitating autonomy and flexibility

The aim of this e-learning course is to provide an accessible tool that can fulfill immediate training requirements for all patient organisation representatives. Concretely this could be a situation where, in the course of planning a clinical study, representatives are asked to add their insight to the project.

Shifting from a traditional course to an e-learning tool may be frustrating because the face to face interaction is missing. To counteract this, we have tried to make the modules as flexible as possible allowing learners to organise their program according to their needs and the topics being studied.

Content adapted to learning styles

Each of the four modules (Methodology, Ethics, Research and Statistics) includes six topics divided into five sections corresponding to different learning approaches.

1. A theoretical approach in the “Lesson” section (a concise 4-5 slide course)
2. A practical approach in the “Case” section (authentic case study analysis)
3. A semantic approach in the “Words” section proposing, in a hierarchical manner, terms relevant to each topic (the 400-word Glossary may also help you)
4. A bibliographic approach with the “Documents” section providing 3-4 documents from different perspectives (regulatory, historical, controversial,...) in order to familiarise with studied concepts
5. A challenging approach through 2 “problematic” quizzes

Whatever your initial choice is, you can also navigate through the sections to gain greater clarification on a subject. For example during the analysis phase of a case study, you can consult the “Lesson” section to consolidate material. Likewise examples of concepts acquired in the “Lesson” section can be consulted in the “Case” or “Documents” section.

In addition each module contains a self-evaluation questionnaire that can be used before starting the training to evaluate your knowledge, strengths and weakness, or later to measure your progresses.

Contributors

All trainers successively involved in these past programmes have been contributors of this e-learning.