Health e-Learning & Media (HELM) team

The Health E-learning and Media Team (HELM) has been built up over the past fifteen years. Specialising in health-related digital learning, it comprises of four academics, two researchers and thirteen learning technology-related posts. Working in the area of health sciences education, collaboration is the lifeblood of all that the team undertakes. These collaborations take many forms; with academic colleagues across the HE sector to provide excellent digital educational resources for healthcare students; with the students themselves who work as co-creators of the resources being developed and are encouraged to develop their digital and educational skills; to the very diverse communities they work with, including patient groups, carers, charities, and health practitioners, providing them with an opportunity to share their unique expertise and giving many under-heard communities a voice within health sciences education and beyond; to the international HE partners in 18 countries with whom we work in order to promote a global perspective in healthcare. The work of the HELM team spans from the support of over 220 curriculum modules to the maintenance of a repository of over 250 globally available, free multimedia interactive learning resources. The impact of the collaborative approach to work is seen both inside and outside the team. Within the team, many members have received awards and accolades that represent the level of innovation and creativity that collaborative team approaches foster. Externally, the impact is seen by the fact the openly available resources are being accessed in over 140 countries worldwide by an estimated 5 million users. Moreover, this level of engagement has been grown and sustained over the fifteen years of the team’s activity. The techniques and skills developed by the HELM team in community-created learning design are now being shared globally through open online training courses and train-the-trainer projects delivered in a number of countries. Evidence-led practice is also a crucial aspect of the team’s work, with projects focused on the barriers and drivers to effective multimedia pedagogy and understanding barriers and drivers of reuse.