Journal of Academic Development and Education JADE Issue 8 | Page 24
HIGHLIGHT #1 | 25
24 | JADE
CARLOS TURRO, IGNACIO DESPUJOL & JAIME BUSQUETS
HIGHLIGHT #1
Title
Saudi to Staffs: learning
experiences from Saudi
Arabian students’ biomedical
research visits to Keele
University 2011 to 2016
Authors
Paul Roach and Mark Smith
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.21252/
KEELE-0000018
Figure 2: Marks comparison in mixed Flipped Teaching courses
References
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Paella Player. 2016. Paella Player. [ONLINE] Available at: http://
paellaplayer.upv.es. [Accessed 16 December 2016].
Opencast. 2016. Opencast | Media & Education. [ONLINE] Available
at: http://www.opencast.org. [Accessed 16 December 2016].
Turro, C., Cañero, A. & Busquets, J., 2010. Video learning objects
creation with Polimedia. In Proceedings - 2010 IEEE International
Symposium on Multimedia, ISM 2010. pp. 371–376.
Contact
[email protected]
Abstract
The developing interest in research
within Saudi Arabia has emerged over
the past decade, particularly being
strong within the medical field. The
initial concept of the programme,
which has remained central to the
development of the programme, was
to bring the very best academic
medical school undergraduates and
give them a taste for research within
a leading UK framework. The steady
growth and success of the programme
has led colleagues to ask for some
reflections on how it started and how it
has been led.
For the past six years Keele
University’s Research Institute
for Science & Technology
in
Medicine
(ISTM)
has
hosted visits from groups
of undergraduate medical
students from Saudi Arabia.
The developing interest in
research within Saudi Arabia
has emerged over the past
decade, particularly being
strong within the medical
field. The initial concept
of the programme, which
has remained central to
the development of the
programme, was to bring the
very best academic medical
school
undergraduates
and give them a taste for
research within a leading
UK framework. The steady
growth and success of the
programme has led colleagues
to ask for some reflections
on how it started and how
it has been led. An update
(Clarke J, 2016) appeared in a
recent edition of JADE which
focussed
on
international
activity at Keele. That issue
also contained a perspective
on a teaching initiative with
China (Robinson ZP et al,
2016) and it may be useful
to hear from an international
programme that is continuing
and growing. Next year marks
a change of direction in the
Saudi visiting medical student
programme, due to Dr Paul
Roach, one of the leaders from
the start, moving from Keele to
Loughborough in December
2016. The formation of a new
Research Institute for Applied
Clinical Sciences within the
Faculty of Medical & Health
Sciences also means that in
future the visits might span
more clinical areas of activity.
So now seemed to be a good
time to take stock of what
has been achieved and the
experience gained through
offering the programme.
Initially Keele was one of
several
UK
universities
contacted
through
an
independent agent for higher
education, on behalf of their
client, an unspecified medical
school in Saudi Arabia. The
specification called for:
“…interested universities that
would like to undertake a
four week research training
program from 1st July–31st
July 2011 [for] 1st and 2nd
year undergraduate medical
students in groups of 10 to
have exposure to the basic
skills required for biomedical
research (a maximum of 20
students per university). The
core topics of the course
should be:
1. Understanding
disease
mechanism
2. The discovery of disease
biomarkers
3. The discovery innovative
therapeutic approaches
4. An introduction to research
to one or more of the
following subject areas:
a. Obesity
b. Diabetes
c. Cancer
d. Infectious diseases
e. Neurological disease
f. Traditional medicine
[…]
a
number
of
key
requirements for participating
universities. These are as
follows: