USEFUL WEBSITES
Virtual universities
A book review in this section looks at the
concept of online learning. It may be a
while before e-learning totally
supersedes our existing medical
education, but the internet looks set
radically to change the way in which we
learn medicine. In September, the Cyber
Medical College, an online virtual
healthcare education portal, was
launched at the British Association
Festival of Science in Glasgow
www.cybermedicalcollege.com. The
website aims to provide access to
postgraduate training and continuing
professional development for doctors,
nurses, and other healthcare workers.
As yet there are no colleges claiming
to offer e-medical degrees, but one
Brazilian site, VUniversity http://
sansao19.virtualave.net, aims to provide
net users with online classes in all
academic subjects, including medicine.
Elsewhere on the web there are a
huge number of virtual universities
offering courses in a variety of subjects.
http://vu.org, based in California, claims
to be the world's largest, with over
500 000 students and alumni in 128
countries. The African Virtual University
www.avu.org, “a university without
walls,” aims to provide countries in
subsaharan Africa with access to high
quality academic resources. Europe's first
virtual university http://cvu.strath.ac.uk
draws on the strengths of five academic
institutes in Scotland. There is also a
Tamil virtual university
www.tamilvu.org bringing net based
learning material regarding Tamil
culture to the online community.
A great deal of literature has been
published about e-learning and virtual
universities. Virtual University Gazette
www.geteducated.com/vugaz.htm is a
monthly newsletter covering all aspects
of the internet university movement.
Virtual University Journal www.irdc.
com/virtual-university-press/vuj/
welcome.htm also publishes papers
relating to the field of distance learning.
Helen Barratt, third year medical student, Imperial College School of Medicine, London
Email: helenbarratt@ic.ac.uk
studentBMJ 2001;09:399-442 November ISSN 0966-6494
