KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Force in 2011. It was built upon the longstanding relationships
Box 2: Goals of OERC-INDIA
of INCTR and several of the OERC Executive Committee
‰ Define the cancer educational needs of Indian medical and members with Indian medical educational and cancer control
nursing students, clinical trainees, practicing providers and programmes. Given the extensive cancer education, control
researchers. and research activities between INCTR (funded in part by the
‰ Define the range of methods and technologies for US National Cancer Institute) and numerous cancer centres
effectively and sustainably delivering the cancer education and academic cancer institutes in India, the OERC Executive
materials to Indian organizations and communities. Committee made the decision to focus upon India as the initial
‰ Define the types of professional development programmes model for cancer education, care and research capacity
to support the development and validation of the cancer building. Initial discussions with cancer education thought
education skills and knowledge within Indian organizations leaders in India indicated substantial need and interest in a
and communities. shared repository of curricula and educational materials
‰ Define the assessment rubrics to guide decisions on the targeted to the specific needs in India for capacity expansion
readiness of Indian organizations and communities of health and enhancement of the cancer control, treatment and
care providers to adopt and benefit from the open research workforce. At a preliminary meeting of US and India
educational services. counterparts, held in Kerala in December, 2011, it was
‰ Establish a shared governance and management process determined that a major conference should be held in India in
that will ensure that the collection of OER for cancer is 2013 to define, develop and implement the OERC-India
developed, reviewed and distributed effectively and project. The primary goal of this conference is to leverage and
efficiently. formalize working relationships among US and Indian cancer
‰ Improve OERC-India portal to strengthen and expand the educators to focus upon the definition of the cancer
productive collaborations for developing, aggregating, and educational needs of medical and nursing students, trainees,
disseminating open educational resources concerning practising providers and researchers. Additional objectives
cancer for the healthcare community in India. would include (1) exploration and optimization of the existing
and innovative technology options and platforms to best serve
the needs of Indian learners and educators and (2) to gain
follows peer review process of scholarly research consensus on a plan to formalize and sustain the US-India
(http://taste.merlot.org/peerreviewprocess.html). The relationships necessary for the future success of the OERC-
methodology begins with training the peer reviewers on the India programme.
three evaluation criteria used in the peer review process: 1) In 2011, the OERC India Task Force was developed under
quality of the content, 2) pedagogical effectiveness, and 3) the leadership of Dr Madhavan Pillai, Professor of Medicine
ease of use. The training provides peer reviewers with and Oncology at the Kimmel Cancer Center of The Jefferson
guidelines, practices, feedback, and mentoring to develop their University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Dr Pillai,
skills in conducting valid and reliable peer reviews. MERLOT’s originally of the Medical Faculty of the Kerala Medical School
peer reviews are published along with other quality and utility in Trivandrum, and a leader in US-India oncology educational
information about the resource. Providing the analysis and efforts, met in Kerala in December, 2011, with several leading
advice by the larger OERC community can help individual Indian cancer educators to conduct an initial needs
users decide if and how the materials can be used effectively in assessment and preliminary planning session for a proposed
their local context. Furthermore, MERLOT enables individual OERC India Conference in 2013. Their session confirmed the
users to rate each educational module and to add their advice strong demand for cancer educational collaboration between
and experiences about how they were able to use the material academic cancer institutions in the US and their India
in their local situations and add their observations of counterparts. They investigated potential IT platforms for
outcomes. By leveraging MERLOT, OERC enables the collaboration, outlined a tentative agenda and initiated a
community of users, experts, and educational content bilateral list of participants for the planned 2013 conference.
providers to become connected within circles of A follow-up meeting was held at the June 2012, ASCO
communication. meeting in Chicago and underscored the need to further
develop the elements and agenda for the OERC-India
The “OERC-India Project” programme, Continued interaction and interim planning
The OERC-India project began with the OERC India Task meetings for the proposed OERC-India Conference will be
CANCER CONTROL 2013 165