01 May 2017

SIU Academy eLearning and mobile app

Topics

eLearning at Your Fingertips: SIU Academy has embarked on an ambitious project to provide members with an interesting, dynamic, and proactive educational tool with unique features. Over 46 000 users and almost 7000 pieces of educational content available after 4 years of activity.

Success achieved

Website: https://www.siu-urology.org/academy
Project dates: June 2012 – October 2016

Project team

Merveille de Souza, Manager – SIU Academy
Jennifer Varga, Coordinator – SIU Academy
Louise Savoie, Graphic Designer – SIU
Francesco Capaldo, IT Director – SIU
Christine Albino, Medical Content Manager
Carrie Thompson, Medical Writer and Editor

Tools & Systems

SIU Academy LMS

Multiportal LMS
Only Linux CentOS and Ubuntu (video processing server)
Apache web server (load balanced)
MySQL (master slave replication)
DNS Bind (chrooted)

SIU Academy App

Multilearning Mobile Learning Apps
Android compatible with version 4.1 and up, designed for smartphones and tablets
iOS Compatible with version 7.0 and up, designed for iPhones 4 and up/iPads 2 and up
Ability to publish any materials/activity enhanced for mobile learning and adapted to iOS and Android smartphones and tablets with Multilearning embedded HTML5 Module Builder

Project management tool

Asana

Introduction

In 2012, the SIU Board of Directors decided to offer online education to its members in order to increase its educational offerings and to broaden its reach. The SIU Academy eLearning platform was launched in 2013.

In 2014, the SIU started collaborating with other urological associations and societies to make their meeting content available on SIU Academy and therefore increase our reach. As the SIU Academy quickly grew and turned into a vast library of digital content, 16 new committees (over 50 urologists) were created to develop and oversee the content of the e-Learning platform.

Tremendous efforts are constantly made to provide end-users with tools allowing them to find precise content in seconds thanks to assisted search algorithms. In 2016, we took our offerings one step further, during our 36th Annual Congress, we launched: the SIU Academy mobile app!
SIU Academy has allowed Urologists around the world to access content in a unique multimedia format (cross devices) to get, within a single learning activity, various multimedia components that would enhance their learning experience and improve their knowledge/understanding and comfort on important urological topics.

The SIU’s mission is to enable urologists from all nations, through international cooperation in education and research, to apply the highest standards of urological care to their patients. It is important to say that when SIU Academy was launched in 2013, our users were from 143 countries. Today, they come from 177 countries and in addition we collaborate with other urological associations and philanthropic groups such as IVUmed and Movember to share education and help improve urological care worldwide.

We feel that our eLearning portal, the SIU Academy and now the SIU Academy mobile app, both help us work towards fulfilling our mission and bringing urologists from across the globe together.

Discovery

In a way we felt like this was a natural evolution of our offerings. Before the creation of the SIU Academy mobile app, the webcasts and ePosters were available for mobile devices, and about 35% of the visits to SIU Academy were made from them.

Our users are urologists who are constantly on the go and who travel a lot. As physicians, they also need to maintain a certain amount of CME credits each year but they don’t always have the time to spare and sit behind a computer. Having the SIU Academy content from our platform, available on a mobile application, with all the features that the web portal offers was our way to allow them to access the education from anywhere.

We asked our members in feedback forms and in person when we see them at our Congress and related meetings what they would like to see available and time and again they asked for a way to access the content on SIU Academy via their mobile devices.

The members of our Innovators and Technology committee, along with the members of the SIU Academy Governance Committee confirmed that this would be a good time to make such an app available for our members in order to provide them what they need as well as to keep them interested and engaged with our education offerings. So when our platform provider presented the app and confirmed that it would have the same functionalities that the actual portal already offered, it was only a matter of a few months for the project to be approved and for the development to start.

Objectives

The main goal was to provide members with dynamic and interactive educational material, such as state-of-the-art lectures, video techniques, reviews of literature, case discussions with experts, congress webcasts, and live surgeries.
A minimum of 500 downloads by end of December 2016 was expected

Activities

1. Activities undertaken for the development of SIU Academy® (LMS et Mobile Learning Apps):

June 2012 - First meeting with platform provider
September 2012 - Project approved by the Board of Directors
Between September and March 2013 - Creation of Governance committee and Educational Events committee
March 2013 - Promotional video to announce the launch of SIU Academy®
July 2013 - Hiring of project manager dedicated to SIU Academy®
I year anniversary - Launch of a new promotional video for the SIU Academy®
Satisfaction questionnaire and needs assessment to gage users satisfaction: after each program on SIU Academy and one more generic once a year
December 2014 - Trade mark of the SIU Academy name
Ongoing - Development of sponsorship strategies to secure industry support in order to build more educational programs: ongoing
Fall 2014 - Launch of the SIU Academy® What’s Trending page, enhanced navigation bar, and new look of the portal
May 2015 - Implementation of the Single Sign-on system to allow users to login with their SIU member access
May 2015 - Introduction of content access levels on SIU Academy® (regular, privilege and exclusive)
Spring 2015 - Creation of various subcommittees for development and review of new content
August 2015 - Hiring of a coordinator to assist SIU Academy Manager
October 2015 Strategic plan and discussions about a mobile app
May 2016 - Decision to offer a mobile app to our members approved by the Board of Directors
October 2016 - Launch of SIU Academy® App for iOS iPhone/iPad and Android devices
Update of the scientific tree for a better mapping of the content.

2. Schedules and procedures

The following procedures occur on an ongoing basis as these are for each program that is created for SIU Academy

Coordinating the work to provide final approval of each projects and strategies during educational committee meetings
Working on planification with suppliers to coordinate the coverage and release of every piece of educational material
Working on procedures for the review process by educational committee members
Working on the preparation / review of each single material/activity released
Working on the preparation / review of each promotional messages/newsletter/push notifications sent to end-users

3. Material produced

The content is released on SIU Academy at least once a month

Accredited activities: 5
Accredited courses: 11
Live streamings: 4
Case studies: 11
Educational videos: 169
e-Series: 13
Webcasts: 989
ePosters: 3093
Expert reviews: 34
Quizzes: 112
Abstracts: 2376
Annotated reprints: 1
Publications: 97

4. Team and efforts

In addition to the platform and mobile application provider, 6 staff members from the SIU Central Office combine their efforts for the development, content creation and review, and maintenance of SIU Academy and the mobile app.

Merveille de Souza, Manager SIU Academy – full time employee overseeing all aspects of the portal and managing the various committees (content development- supported or not by industry, CME accreditation, liaison between various suppliers, promotion, implementation of new features, live events, special programs, newsletter, annual report, etc.)

Jennifer Varga, Coordinator SIU Academy: Approximately 15h/week
Louise Savoie, Graphic designer: approximately 5h/month
Francesco Capaldo, IT Director: approximately 10h/ month
Christine Albino, Medical Content Manager: approximately 8h/week
Carrie Thompson, Medical writer: varies from projects, approximately 8h/week

In addition, there are 3 committees leading SIU Academy - approximately 55 urologists from across the globe who give their time and share their expertise to help us ensure that we offer high quality programs and activities:

SIU Academy Governance Committee
SIU Academy Committee for CME Programs
Group of Sub-committees

To ensure timelines are met, we work with critical paths and use Asana, a project management tool, as deadlines are usually very tight and projects are time sensitive.

The SIU Academy LMS took approximately 8 months of development. Please note that the development never really ends as we work continuously to update and enhance our users’ experience. New features are added on a monthly basis.

The SIU Academy Mobile App was developed in approximately 3 months.

Innovation

The SIU Academy mobile Learning App is on iOS and Android. End-users can complete any educational activity, CME accredited or not, and access educational materials that are available on SIU Academy or on the mobile app directly from any device with optimized mobile app native players to ensure an enhanced educational experience.

eLearning requires interactivity and multimedia components, advanced display of content and strong server connections. To respond to this very demanding environment, Mobile Learning Apps become the best solution to ensure a great end-user experience. HTML5 is a powerful language and the voice of the future for web/mobile applications.

Login information is stored within the App, so once a user logs in for the first time, he does not need to do so again. As cellular connections are less reliable/ stable than Wi-Fi/lan connections, thanks to this, the app will seamlessly and automatically re-log the user when a session is lost.
SIU Academy Portal and mobile app are also connected with SIU’s AMS, enabling a complete single sign on (SSO) experience.

Marketing

Once the mobile application was ready to be launched, we put together a promotional campaign that would be launched during our 36th Annual Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina. With the help of our provider we created a dynamic video to present this app. The video was released during our opening ceremony and presented by the SIU General Secretary. It was also played during the entire time of our Congress in various locations of the Convention Center for maximum visibility.

In addition, we had staff in our booth to promote the app and assist members who had questions on how to download it to their mobile devices.

Because not all our users attend our congress, we also made sure to have promotional eBlasts sent to our entire database of over 46 000 contacts after the launch, with the video embedded and a link to download the app. The video was also made available on Vimeo and You Tube and shared via social media on Facebook and Twitter.

Since then, in every weekly promotional eBlasts, we add a section to promote the SIU Academy mobile application and we regularly post on Facebook and Twitter to remind our users and followers of its availability. In addition, we have created ads that are incorporated in printed promotional material that is distributed at related congresses that we attend.

Challenges

Being a non-for-profit association, it was very important to have an unanimous approval and support from our Board of Directors as this is the key for the success of such a project. At the beginning, a handful of members were a bit sckeptical but the leadership was quick to recognize technology was shaping how physicians were learning and embracing new tools, especially with younger doctors.

Significant changes in the medical and pharmaceutical industry had been evolving for several years, with the rise of physician guidelines and travel restrictions. These changes, making it much harder for doctors to travel, where in the past, meetings played a major role in continuing medical education.

The Academy was created to fill an unmet need by offering accurate and relevant medical education on an innovative platform on a global scale with easy access and a powerful search engine.

As SIU Academy grew rapidly, developing new programs on a regular basis in order to maintain
the momentum and attract more industry partners was crucial and we needed to ensure that we had enough financial and human ressources to carry all these programs through. But none of these would be possible without the support and expertise of all the experts that are sitting on SIU Academy various committees. Although they have a very busy schedule, which can sometimes make the respect of deadlines challenging, they dedicate their time to the success of the programs.

Attracting younger generations of urologists, residents and trainees has been one of the SIU’s goals, which is one of the reasons why the support of the Innovators and Technology Committee was instrumental in the approval of the mobile app development.

Finally, it takes great organization and coordination skills to manage this project, as it is important to properly liaise between the various suppliers, staff members, committee members and industry partners for the success of the Society. This is why a dedicated full time manager for the Academy is crucial.

Achievements

We have exceeded our expectations in the app’s downloads of the first 2 months by about 30%.

We were aiming to have at least 1500 downloads within the first six months and 2000 by the end of year 1. We are now at 840 downloads but we still have one month to go and we keep promoting the app at related meetings and in our promotional mailblasts and social media.

User experience

The mobile application is the exact reproduction of the web platform and offers the same features and functionalities. Users can navigate in the same way as they do on the portal, and one might think it is even easier on the mobile application.

On the landing screen, which is the What’s Trending page, we feature all new material that we are promoting. Users can also interact among the community via the “rate and comments” and the “discussion forum” features which allow them to connect, share their opinion, contact speakers and save content as their favorite.

Because it is a mobile application, once users log in for the first time they don’t need to re-enter their username and password every time they log in, which they appreciate because people tend to forget their login credentials.

Financials

Overall since the creation of SIU Academy in 2013, the SIU has invested close to a half-million dollars, between the platform cost, content development, IT support and hiring resources to manage the various projects.

The cost of the mobile app itself and maintenance fee is quite minimal compared to the value it brings. The SIU Academy is free for all users; members have full content access and non-members about 70%.

We see the return on investment in the increase of the traffic to the portal, of our global membership and collaborations with national and regional societies. This materializes with a direct increase in the will to develop and financially support educational projects from current and new industry partners.

Our sponsors appreciate how innovative and creative the SIU remains, and see the opportunity for their material to be accessed easier, and faster which keeps them engaged and wanting to do
more. Since the launch of the mobile app, we have noticed a significant increase in the visits as more users are searching the Academy and attending live streamed events from their mobile devices (20% of the attendees).

What would we do differently?

There is not much that we could have done differently as we followed our plan and we work in close collaboration with our platform and mobile application provider to constantly enhance our users’ experience.

Our Board members are all very supportive and there are constantly new programs that are being developed to provide up to date education to our members and keep our industry partners interested.

Feedback & Testimonials

We have received a few comments from users who downloaded the app and a few of them also rated the app:

iOS ratings and review: 3 ratings received (all 5 stars)
Android ratings: 6 ratings (all 5 stars) and 1 comment: “Thanks for this application.”

“I use the app and love it. I felt it is very user friendly.”

Reynaldo Gomez, user

When I used the app I thought it was excellent and very easy to navigate.”

Peter Black, user

"SIU Academy… is a wonderful example of how the SIU provides a platform to enhance one’s knowledge."

Dr. Franklin E. Kuehhas, Austria

"I believe for the future of global collaborative urology education and training [is supported by] access the web-based resources… Including SIU Academy."

Dr. Justin Chee, Austria

Wider impact

There has been an increase in our SIU Academy registrations which has had a direct impact on SIU’s membership growth by approximately 10%. In a good proportion, these SIU Academy users become SIU members in order to gain full access of the content available.

We also have more users from developing countries as it is easier for them to use the app to access content since pretty much everyone now has smartphones and tablets.

Finally, more national and regional urological associations want to collaborate with us and seek the SIU endorsement, as they see the potential in broadening their reach and offering access to high-end education to their members.

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