The Virtual Innovative Biomedical Education in Science

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed inadequacies in current teaching methods in general and practical workshops in particular. The VIBES project addresses the need for virtually accessible practical training courses for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and biomedical education in Europe and potentially beyond. Reasons for creating a virtual lab include the potential next pandemic, the concept of 4R in research, high education costs, and a lack of sufficient access to modern laboratories. Thus, VIBES focused on developing innovative virtual training tools to support students and teachers in achieving learning objectives related to practical laboratory work in developmental biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology. Virtual labs can introduce a new kind of experimental science into courses and train young scientists in thinking for life sciences. The tools are also very valuable for students with special needs that limit participation in practical training. For biologists, virtual labs are valuable for learning advanced simulation tools and can promote standardized model descriptions and data.

The project sought to provide a comprehensive online training program to enhance the laboratory skills of students and young scientists in biomedical sciences/biotechnology as a stepping stone towards a hands-on workshop. It also aimed to help the teachers to guide the students in a simulated environment to attend hands-on. The project also aimed to address the limitations of existing learning environments concerning science laboratories in higher education by using technology innovatively to create a safe and interactive virtual lab environment. Another objective was to contribute to the highest educational standards in biomedical research by allowing students with limitations to get as close as possible to hand on experience. The project aimed to achieve the following: creating a new training Virtual Lab curriculum; provide teachers with tools to implement innovative teaching strategies, provide suggestions to the teachers how to use the VIBES to build upon and expand the teaching curriculum. It also wanted to provide an overview of appropriate lab methodologies for describing bioscience processes; giving a practical introduction to advanced simulation tools; and increasing awareness of the need for standard model descriptions.

The project has achieved several concrete outputs classified into Project Results (PR) one throught 4. Importantly, we have generated and delivered additional items not proposed in the proposal but during the grant execution it became apparent that they would be very valuable for students or teachers. A consortium with operational capacity and a Steering Group was established. Project documentation, including partner agreements, a project logo, and templates, has been developed. Principles for PR1 production, including a standardized video script template, specifications for video recording and post-production, have been created. Project Result 1 (Virtual Lab Training for Bioscience students) delivered not only 25 core movies but each of them exists additionally in an interactive as well as subtitled versions making a total of more than 75 movies. Additionally, not initially proposed, we created Teacher Guides, Standard Operating Procedures and Safety Instructions for all the movies. A digital repository for project documentation was created. The project partners developed a standardized video script template based on guidelines used by The Journal of Visual Experiments (JoVE). We have however improved on the concept by using professional videographers during the production stage. Additionally we provided scripts that included detailed information for preparation, production, post-production, scientific content, camera instructions, editing, graphics, voice-over, subtitles, standard operating procedures (SOPs). Finally, we generated Teacher guide supplements to support the teachers in their educational efforts. All scripts underwent cross-editing by partners and proofreading by a native English speaker. The project also reconsidered the approach to PR1 production to standardize work and enhance quality, leading to a fruitful workshop at KU Leuven-LIMEL that helped develop unanimously adopted standards. Finally, the embedding of different types of interactivity modules (multiple choice, drag and drop, match the pairs, open- and closed-ended questions (‘true or false’, ‘yes or no’, sorting/classification) and identifying the image) was an instrument to engage and further enhance learning for the video viewers (students). Because PR1 contains more than 4000 individual files, including system files, SCORM formats to be implemented in e-learning platforms like Moodle, Toledo, etc.,, and the size of the files, it was not possible to upload the PR1 content in the Project Results platform. As consulted with the Project Officer at the National Agency, we have created login credentials to be used by the EU Project Evaluators to access the PR1 content for review at MUL MS Teams space (Microsoft 365):: *Confidential - only for the use by the EU Project evaluators: Login*: vibes@365.uml.edu.pl Password*: Projekt365 The project website (PR2) is accessible at https://vibes-edu.eu. It includes not only the typical information about VIBES such as the mission decriotion or the composition of the project PIs but also contains the page where the links for the educational materials are included. International glossary of biomedical and embryological terms(PR3) has been generated in 6 languages and is available. Current AI landcape permits however to add any additionl translation if needed. A very successful Conference and Workshop (PR4) was organized in Lublin, Poland. The conference had several distinguished invited speakers (see the program). The workshop for 25 people gave them an opportunity to familiarize and exercise the tools developed by the project. The workshop was particularly important for the project. It gave an opportunity not only to test our product but also include lat minute adjustment to improve it overall quality.