Notes from the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine: a next-generation distance learning system for public health.

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine have entered into a three-year, collaborative agreement to explore potential uses of next-generation Internet for professional education in public health. Computers and the Internet are pervasive elements in personal and professional life, and their influence on education and training is growing. Various initiatives, including public health, 1 have begun to tap these new methods for communicating information, ideas, and experiences. However, current efforts are typically limited to the dissemination of documents and very limited use of other media, such as lectures-on-demand using audio streaming and " slide shows " of text bullets and graphics; in a few instances, video streaming is being used, but these are either primitive experiments or more sophisticated efforts that require advanced networks or the addition of CD-ROMs to the mix. This limitation on educational models and methods is partly due to current restrictions set by the Internet's infrastructure (lower bandwidth and inadequate user interfaces 2) and partly by a lack of experience in technology-based learning among educators. The first limitation is being addressed by new private and public initiatives designed to hasten the evolution of the technological infrastructure, particularly the deployment of broadband 3 networks capable of high Quality of Service (QoS) 4 ; the use of user interfaces that are more intuitive (and immersive 5); and the development of new methods for information search, retrieval and display (e.g., using " data mining " and software " agents " 6). A common term describing the goal of these efforts is " Next-Generation Internet " (NGI) 7. The second limitation is being addressed by efforts to give educators opportunities to use relevant technologies (notably multimedia and video streaming 8). The project described here is, to our knowledge, the first such effort in public health. Goals of the Project The first goal is to help shape, to some extent, the evolution of the NGI to support the education and training of practitioners in preventive medicine and public health. The second goal is to help public health educators understand how NGI might be used when it becomes available and to prepare for that eventuality. The first goal involves the development of tools and techniques for the production and dissemination of multimedia content via the NGI. It also involves the development of more intuitive and content-specific user interfaces than " browsers " provide. 9 This will …