From the Desktop to the student’s desk: Using an inexpensive desktop Windows NT computer system with powerful tools (Access database, Cold Fusion Application server, and JavaScript for the User Interface) to Develop a Web-based, interactive Pharmacology Question bank.
Authors:
Rick Lasslo, School Of Medicine, University of California, Davis
Gary Henderson, Ph.D., Department of Medical Pharmacology and Toxicology, School Of Medicine, University of
California, Davis
Abstract:
Until now, database driven web applications typically required expensive UNIX servers, long development times, and a complex set of interface tools. However, with the recent introduction of web-to-database interface applications like Cold Fusion, which use a simple HTML-like scripting language, one can quickly construct and operate a web-based database on a relatively small desktop system (i.e. Windows NT, Pentium 200 MHz CPU). These desktop database systems have the added advantages of being relatively inexpensive and highly platform independent. An instructor can add and modify content, and students can view content, from any computer system in the world that is attached to the Internet using the Netscape or Internet Explorer browser. Such a system was used to construct a web-based, interactive question bank application to aid in teaching the current medical pharmacology course. In a post-course evaluation, both students and instructors rated this application as being highly user friendly and pivotal in their learning process.
The application consists of two programs: a question bank program for the student and an administrator program for the instructor. Questions, answers, images and feedback responses are stored in an Access database located on a Windows NT based Pentium processor. The Cold Fusion application server, also located on the Windows NT system, links the database with our application using HTML-like template files. The users interface, programmed using Javascript and HTML, consists of three scrollable frames: a navigation frame on top for selecting questions, a middle frame for displaying questions and possible answers (as radio buttons), and a lower frame for displaying the correct answer, explanations, and the student’s cumulative score. After the student has responded, the question and feedback information are visible at the same time. For better performance, the application was designed to download the question, answers, and feedback information all at once, thus alleviating the need to make multiple calls to the server. This results in almost immediate response time after a student selects an answer.
The pharmacology question bank application can be accessed at http://cim.ucdavis.edu/qb/
For additional information contact Gary Henderson or Rick Lasslo