We read with great interest the views expressed in the June JADA Question of the Month, "Would a ‘paperless’ approach to dental education appeal to you?"
The comments reflect the varied issues related to the use of computers in dental education. However, the question might have been more accurately stated as "a less-paper approach" rather than "a paperless approach."
While the curriculum digital video disk, or DVD, we’ve developed for our students at the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine will contain hundreds of thousands of pages from textbooks, manuals, syllabi and lecture notes, the manner in which students access that information will be their personal decision. For some topic areas, students may choose to use the embedded search engine, the highlighting and the cut-and-paste features to create their own computerized "virtual" textbooks. For other topic areas, students may choose to use hard-copy study outlines from the DVD.
Even though the first inclination might be to rely primarily on material printed from the DVD, studies suggest that, with continued use, students will rely more on the digital media. And while the disk will contain material from all four years of the predoctoral program, replacement disks will be issued twice a year to keep pace with curriculum changes. Faculty will be able to continuously update their material. Modifications or additions between DVD "editions" can be downloaded from the school’s server.
Rather than functioning solely as a text reader or as a DVD player, we see the computer as an additional educational resource integrated throughout the basic, behavioral and clinical sciences. For example, students will use their computers to access our school’s clinic management system to schedule patient appointments and to request instrument trays and patient charts. They will use the computer for e-mail to faculty and other students, to access online knowledge bases, to write and submit papers, to take tests, and to use specialized educational software.
Our surveys over the past several years have noted steady increases in the number of our entering students who have extensively utilized computers during their undergraduate education. Not surprisingly, dental students themselves have requested greater integration of computers in the curriculum. Accordingly, the development of the electronic curriculum marks for these students an educational evolution rather than what may seem to some as an educational revolution.
