EMIT BULLETIN
EMIT DIGITAL DICTIONARY
CONTINUES ITS UPDATE
April 2006
The wide international use of the multilingual EMIT Dictionary led to its further update. This activity will be linked with plans for a new Web site of the dictionary (which will support various new alphabets) and eventually with a new project aiming to provide additional explanations to the translated terms.
EMIT AND EMERALD PRESENTED AT THE WORLD CONFERENCE "PHYSICS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT" IN DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA
December 2005
The World Conference "Physics and Sustainable Development", organised by UNESCO, ICTP and IUPAP in Durbam (November 2005) included a special track PHYSICS AND MEDICINE. Emit and Emerald projects were presented at this track with a new expanded demo material, which could be used in various developing countries. The project was accepted together with the project for developing a Model MSC Curriculum in Medical Physics (to be announced soon through the Education and Training Committee of the IOMP).
The new demo is available from http://www.emerald2.net/WCPSD/
EMIT WINS THE FIRST EVER LEONARDO DA VINCI AWARD
December 2004
Dear Colleagues, we are very happy to inform you that on 15 December 2004 our EU project EMIT (European Medical Imaging Technology Training) was awarded the first ever LEONARDO DA VINCI AWARD.
The award ceremony took place at the high level Conference of EU Ministers for Education "Strengthening European Co-operation in Vocational Education and Training", held in Maastricht, Holland, on 14-16th December. The event was organised by the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission together with the European Union Dutch Presidency. It was co-hosted by the new EU Commissioner for Education and Culture, Ján Figel and the EU Dutch Presidency, represented by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Maria van der Hoeven.
The Leonardo da Vinci Award is the new international award, which EU launches to acknowledge achievements in Education and Training. 165 exemplary projects had been selected from more than 4000 EU projects (in the last 10 years). From these, 32 "success-stories" have been nominated for this prestigious Award and an International Committee of Experts selected 3 projects for the Award. EMIT project Consortium was the first to be announced as Winner of the first Leonardo Award. The specially made trophy (with engraving from the Leonardo's "Flying man") was presented to Dr Slavik Tabakov (EMIT Coordinator) and Dr Neil Leis (representing the Contracting Institutions King's College London and Kings College Hospital NHS Trust) by Mr Nicolas van der Pas - EU Director General for Education and Training.
The innovation and the volume (more than 1 GB) of our e-Learning materials for Medical Physics Training (both in project EMIT and its predecessors EMERALD and EMERALD - Internet Issue) were described as "unmatched in their breadth and depth". The three winning projects were: · E-learning develops medical imaging skills (EMIT) · Leonardo Power Quality Initiative (LPQI) · Giving credit for accumulated knowledge and skills benefits everyone (AKS)
EMIT Consortium thanks heartily to all colleagues who contributed to the development and assessment of these important for our profession e-learning materials.
EMIT MATERIALS COMMERCIALISATION - FIRST RESULTS
November 2004
For just a month EMIT CDs sales resulted to initial distribution of the materials in 12 countries. The first feedback is positive and fully supportive. The feedback is now in preparation to be published in the special issue on e-Learning of the Journal of Medical Engineering and Physics. EMIT Consortium plans a meeting in 2005 to discuss the update of all EMERALD and EMIT materials. Most likely this event will be associated with the International Conference on Medical Physics in Nuremberg, Germany.
EMIT DIGITAL DICTIONARY LAUNCHED WITH 7 LANGUAGES
September 2004
Following final beta tests at King's College Hospital the Medical Physics e-Dictionary was officially launched as part of each EMIT and EMERALD CD. The launch was made at the International College in Medical Physics (in ICTP, Trieste) including colleagues from 42 countries. The strong interest to the dictionary resulted in demands for inclusions of new languages. So far negotiations are to begin to translate the Dictionary in Cyrillic and Thai alphabets. It is expected the new updated language to be ready within a year.
SIXTH EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
July 2004
The last Consortium meeting (Florence, 28-30 June) evaluated all achievements of the project. All partners expressed opinion of theirs and of external colleagues that EMIT have been extremely successful and will have great impact over the training in the profession all over the world. The ICTP College will include several session with students to use EMIT materials during September 2004. Commercialisation activities were agreed (including pricing strategy) and steps taken into this direction, aiming initial sales during the autumn of 2004. The necessities and activities for preparation of the Final project were agreed and tasks distributed. EMIT materials beta testing and publishing was discussed and its last steps agreed over video conference with UL. All small final additions were agreed and the translations of tasks completed. The Dictionary is now fully completed with 7 languages - English, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish. The total number of terms is 25,00 (some 3600 terms per language). At the end the Consortium discussed a new project to address the continuing training of older colleagues. It was agreed that it is logical for this to be also a Leonardo project as all colleagues are now associating our e-Learning materials with Leonardo. New dissemination strategies were agreed and activities were drafted for the next meeting of the Consortium (after the end of the project) to discuss the update of the materials (alongside the International Medical Physics Conference in Germany 2005).
FIFTH EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
March 2004
The 5th meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was in London (5-7 March 2004). At this meeting the partners discussed the activities to be undertaken during the granted expansion of project period. It was agreed that at first instance the translations will be tackled and later the Dictionary will be completed. The evaluation of the new materials (developed after the EuroConference) was planned. The Image databases are processed and ready with all captions, totaling to some 1700 images (almost double the initial number). The e-books preparation and beta testing is the most important task in front. It will require setting up of special server for exchange of materials between the KCL and UL. Issues related to versions and beta testing were discussed, as the materials are now in more than 10,000 files. It is expected that the final version of e-books to grow above 50,000 and special care should be taken for the coordination of this activity. A special internal monitoring was agreed to keep the final project development in time scale. The project working groups reported their feedback and a joint strategy was agreed in order to complete all improvements by July 2004. UL reported that they shall be ready with the new Internet web site "Training-on-Line" by July, in order to begin beta testing and debugging. Another training introduction will begin during the summer. Dissemination was discussed and two important meetings agreed as priority - EFOMP Conference in Cyprus and the American Conference in Pittsburgh. Special discussion was made for the future activities after the end of the project - both for the update of the materials and addressing the need identified in Trieste.
EMIT DIGITAL DICTIONARY
January 2004
Following the Euro Conference two additional languages (Portuguese and Spanish) were added to the Medical Physics e-Dictionary. This way the total number of words in the Dictionary grows to 25,000 (approx. 3500 in each language). Special gratitude was expressed to the contributors of these translations -
German Translation: Markus Buchgeister, Gunther Helms, Stefan Delorme
French Translation: Alain Noel, Jean-Yves Giraud, Hélène Bouscayrol, Louis Blache
Swedish Translation: Inger-Lena Lamm, Monica Almquist, Ronnie Wirestam, Sven-Erik Strand,
Bo-Anders Jonsson, Michael Ljungberg, Freddy Stahlberg, Thomas Jansson
Italian Translation: Franco Milano
Portuguese Translation: Ana Pascoal
Spanish Translation: Ignacio Hernando, Ana Paula Millán, Alejandro García
Digital Dictionary Database and Programming: Magdalena Stoeva and Assen Cvetkov
EURO CONFERENCE on MEDICAL PHYSICS TRAINING EMIT
November 2003
During September 1998 the EMERALD project Consortium organised the first International Conference on Medical Physics Training. This conference focused not only on the provision of professional training in Europe, but also on the implementation and use of the first e-Learning materials in the profession - EMERALD (covering X-ray Diagnostic Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy Physics).
Five years after this Conference (on 10-11 October 2003) the new project Consortium EMIT (incorporating most of the participants of the EMERALD project) organised another similar International Conference on Medical Physics Training. The objectives of this Second Conference were to assess the materials of the project EMIT (focused on MRI and Ultrasound Imaging Physics) and to discuss the development and delivery of Medical Physics training using e-Learning materials. The venue for this Conference was again kindly provided by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy.
Eminent professors and lecturers from 24 European countries, including representatives of IOMP, IFMBE, EFOMP, AFOMP and AAPM attended the Conference. Each participant received a free copy of the new e-Learning materials EMIT and took part in Working Groups discussing various elements of the training provision. The feedback sessions strongly supported the use of e-Learning in Medical Physics training and education as a very effective tool to study this complex field. It was noted that so far the EMERALD training materials are used in some 65 countries (including at the International Medical Physics College at ICTP) and this requires help with terminology translation from English. In this connection the EMIT project is preparing an e-Dictionary of Medical Physics terms. So far the Dictionary includes cross-translation from English, French, German, Italian, Swedish and Portuguese. Further expansion of the e-Dictionary was discussed with the colleagues from other countries. More information could be obtained from www.emerald2.net .
The Conference concluded with a Declaration of Intend, signed by all delegates, stating: "We all participants at the European Conference on Medical Physics Training, organized by EU Leonardo Project EMIT at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, ICTP, Trieste, Italy (10-11 October 2003), underline the very important role of Medical Physics Training for the effective and safe use of medical equipment in healthcare. The education and training in Medical Physics is vital for the development of healthcare and we highly appreciate the activities of the European Union, IAEA, ICTP, IOMP, IFMBE, EFOMP and other international and national institutions in this direction. We declare our intend to collaborate in the development of various initiatives in education and training, including e-Learning, related to medical technology (in its medical physics, medical engineering and medical application aspects), which will complement and integrate existing programmes. In this connection we agree to form a Network, which will facilitate our aim to harmonise activities and opportunities available to students and colleagues working in healthcare throughout Europe and other countries".
FOURTH EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
July 2003
The 4th meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was in Grenoble (26-28 July 2003). At this meeting the materials evaluation was discussed and feedback collected. All materials for both modules are now approx. 500 pages and 1000 images. It was agreed for more IDL simulations to be added, but this will increase the time for each module finalisation. The practical testing of the tasks was discussed - according to the students this will be an excellent materials for training. French translations will need to be completed at an later stage, as this will have to incorporate the feedback. Dissemination activities were reported and further actions planned. Special attention will be given first to the World Congress in Sydney and later at the EuroConference.
THIRD EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
February 2003
The third meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was organised by the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) at the Curie Institute in Paris, France (8-9 February 2003). This was an enlarged meeting and all partners assessed the project progress and prepared updated work plan for the second phase. Almost all training tasks and pictures have been made and are ready for work-based hospital testing next month. The preparations for the EUROCONFERENCE were also assessed and plans were made for the future dissemination activities. Special attention was given to the e-workbooks (to be developed during the second project phase). It was agreed for an extra Consortium meeting to be held to evaluate these and to discuss the materials to be presented at the World Congress in Sydney and the EMIT Euroconference in ICTP, Italy. It was concluded, that despite late start the project has completed successfully its first phase. The feedback received from trainees, colleagues (so far) and the UK Leonardo Conference in Birmingham show a very high level of appreciation. It was agreed for a group of medical users to begin testing some of the tasks from April. The Consortium agreed on the project brochure and CD covers.
EMIT IMAGE DATABASE AND e-DICTIONARY (ALPHA VER.) TESTED
December 2002
The alpha version of EMIT Image Database (IDB) the e-Dictionary were tested with the representatives of UK ECOTEC. The IDB is in two volumes (on two separate CDs) and for the moment includes approx. 800 digital pictures of various imaging equipment, procedures, tests, artefacts, etc. The images are in JPG format (captions are in preparation and will be added soon). The IDB follows the format of the Emerald IDB (based on ThumbsPlus software), including thumbs, pictures and some image-processing functions. The next phase includes testing of the IDB by trainees and referees and further merging the IDB with the training tasks of the EMIT Workbooks. All these materials will follow internal and external evaluation at the EUROCONFERENCE (10-11 October 2003, ICTP, Trieste, Italy).
The alpha version of EMIT e-Dictionary was also tested and the terms collection is already building several thousands entries. The development of the e-Dictionary will be accelerated in order to present its beta version at the World Congress in Sydney (August 2003).
EMIT EUROCONFERENCE DATE AGREED
October 2002
The EMIT EUROCONFERENCE date was agreed as 10-11 October 2003. The venue of the Conference will be at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics Abdus Salam (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. The objective of the Conference will be to discuss the Training in MRI and Ultrasound Imaging Technology with experienced colleagues from Europe and the use of EMIT Training materials for the purpose.
The decision for this venue was linked with the previous very successful Euroconference on the Training in Medical Radiation Physics at ICTP. Additionally the regular ICTP International College on Medical Physics this year (2-27 September 2002) included a special session on training using Emerald and Emit materials. This activity is presented in more detail at the IOMP Journal “Medical Physics World”.
SECOND EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
August 2002
The second meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was held in Lund on 3-4 August 2002. The partners congratulated the development of a new Medical Physics building at Lund University, which will include special laboratories for e-learning. This development has been significantly facilitated by the excellent results of the e-learning materials developed under the project Emerald. Most of the EMIT e-learning materials will be used at these new premises. The partners discussed in detail the progress of the training tasks. The first draft of the Emit timetables includes 50 training tasks for the MRI training and 48 training tasks for US training. The tasks, the associated images and the timetables will be presented to the external referees of Emit after the next Consortium meeting. The Coordinator presented the beta version of the Medical Physics Dictionary, developed with the help of the colleagues from the Emerald II (Inter-University Medical Physics Centre in Plovdiv). The tasks for collection of terms and their translation were agreed. It was also agreed that the EMIT Euro-Conference will be held in ICTP Trieste on 10-11 October 2003.
EMIT PROGRESS AND INITIAL DISSEMINATION
June 2002
Emit partners exchanged information on the development of the training tasks and the collection of images for the Image Database (IDB). Some of the tasks (those tackling medical usage) have already been formulated and drafted. The project Co-ordinator initiated negotiations related with the future dissemination activity EMIT Euro-Conference. It was agreed that the International Centre for Theoretical Physics Abdus Salam (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy will be the ideal place for this activity due to its very good Conference facilities and links with the previous project Emerald. As an additional dissemination activity, the project Co-ordinator will present the Emit project to the participants to the ICTP International College on Medical Physics (2-27 September 2002, ICTP, Trieste).
FIRST EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
March 2002
The first meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was held in London on 15-16 February 2002. The Consortium agreed on the first draft of the training timetables for Ultrasound (US) and Magnetic Resonance (MRI) Imaging training and identified the teams who will develop the training tasks. The project team noted a good progress with this activity, although these began several months after the official contractual date. This progress is due to the experience which some of the project partners have from the previous Leonardo project EMERALD. It was decided that the format of the EMIT training tasks will closely follow the Emerald format. It was also decided some of the tasks to deal with problems related with the medical use of this technology, thus increasing the field of the use of some training tasks (for radiographers and radiologists). The Consortium agreed on the Internal Contracts and set deadlines for the next activities as per the project plan. It was decided the first presentation of EMIT to be at the French Medical Physics Conference (Grenoble, June’02).
April 2006
The wide international use of the multilingual EMIT Dictionary led to its further update. This activity will be linked with plans for a new Web site of the dictionary (which will support various new alphabets) and eventually with a new project aiming to provide additional explanations to the translated terms.
EMIT AND EMERALD PRESENTED AT THE WORLD CONFERENCE "PHYSICS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT" IN DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA
December 2005
The World Conference "Physics and Sustainable Development", organised by UNESCO, ICTP and IUPAP in Durbam (November 2005) included a special track PHYSICS AND MEDICINE. Emit and Emerald projects were presented at this track with a new expanded demo material, which could be used in various developing countries. The project was accepted together with the project for developing a Model MSC Curriculum in Medical Physics (to be announced soon through the Education and Training Committee of the IOMP).
The new demo is available from http://www.emerald2.net/WCPSD/
EMIT WINS THE FIRST EVER LEONARDO DA VINCI AWARD
December 2004
Dear Colleagues, we are very happy to inform you that on 15 December 2004 our EU project EMIT (European Medical Imaging Technology Training) was awarded the first ever LEONARDO DA VINCI AWARD.
The award ceremony took place at the high level Conference of EU Ministers for Education "Strengthening European Co-operation in Vocational Education and Training", held in Maastricht, Holland, on 14-16th December. The event was organised by the Directorate General for Education and Culture of the European Commission together with the European Union Dutch Presidency. It was co-hosted by the new EU Commissioner for Education and Culture, Ján Figel and the EU Dutch Presidency, represented by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Maria van der Hoeven.
The Leonardo da Vinci Award is the new international award, which EU launches to acknowledge achievements in Education and Training. 165 exemplary projects had been selected from more than 4000 EU projects (in the last 10 years). From these, 32 "success-stories" have been nominated for this prestigious Award and an International Committee of Experts selected 3 projects for the Award. EMIT project Consortium was the first to be announced as Winner of the first Leonardo Award. The specially made trophy (with engraving from the Leonardo's "Flying man") was presented to Dr Slavik Tabakov (EMIT Coordinator) and Dr Neil Leis (representing the Contracting Institutions King's College London and Kings College Hospital NHS Trust) by Mr Nicolas van der Pas - EU Director General for Education and Training.
The innovation and the volume (more than 1 GB) of our e-Learning materials for Medical Physics Training (both in project EMIT and its predecessors EMERALD and EMERALD - Internet Issue) were described as "unmatched in their breadth and depth". The three winning projects were: · E-learning develops medical imaging skills (EMIT) · Leonardo Power Quality Initiative (LPQI) · Giving credit for accumulated knowledge and skills benefits everyone (AKS)
EMIT Consortium thanks heartily to all colleagues who contributed to the development and assessment of these important for our profession e-learning materials.
EMIT MATERIALS COMMERCIALISATION - FIRST RESULTS
November 2004
For just a month EMIT CDs sales resulted to initial distribution of the materials in 12 countries. The first feedback is positive and fully supportive. The feedback is now in preparation to be published in the special issue on e-Learning of the Journal of Medical Engineering and Physics. EMIT Consortium plans a meeting in 2005 to discuss the update of all EMERALD and EMIT materials. Most likely this event will be associated with the International Conference on Medical Physics in Nuremberg, Germany.
EMIT DIGITAL DICTIONARY LAUNCHED WITH 7 LANGUAGES
September 2004
Following final beta tests at King's College Hospital the Medical Physics e-Dictionary was officially launched as part of each EMIT and EMERALD CD. The launch was made at the International College in Medical Physics (in ICTP, Trieste) including colleagues from 42 countries. The strong interest to the dictionary resulted in demands for inclusions of new languages. So far negotiations are to begin to translate the Dictionary in Cyrillic and Thai alphabets. It is expected the new updated language to be ready within a year.
SIXTH EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
July 2004
The last Consortium meeting (Florence, 28-30 June) evaluated all achievements of the project. All partners expressed opinion of theirs and of external colleagues that EMIT have been extremely successful and will have great impact over the training in the profession all over the world. The ICTP College will include several session with students to use EMIT materials during September 2004. Commercialisation activities were agreed (including pricing strategy) and steps taken into this direction, aiming initial sales during the autumn of 2004. The necessities and activities for preparation of the Final project were agreed and tasks distributed. EMIT materials beta testing and publishing was discussed and its last steps agreed over video conference with UL. All small final additions were agreed and the translations of tasks completed. The Dictionary is now fully completed with 7 languages - English, French, German, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish. The total number of terms is 25,00 (some 3600 terms per language). At the end the Consortium discussed a new project to address the continuing training of older colleagues. It was agreed that it is logical for this to be also a Leonardo project as all colleagues are now associating our e-Learning materials with Leonardo. New dissemination strategies were agreed and activities were drafted for the next meeting of the Consortium (after the end of the project) to discuss the update of the materials (alongside the International Medical Physics Conference in Germany 2005).
FIFTH EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
March 2004
The 5th meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was in London (5-7 March 2004). At this meeting the partners discussed the activities to be undertaken during the granted expansion of project period. It was agreed that at first instance the translations will be tackled and later the Dictionary will be completed. The evaluation of the new materials (developed after the EuroConference) was planned. The Image databases are processed and ready with all captions, totaling to some 1700 images (almost double the initial number). The e-books preparation and beta testing is the most important task in front. It will require setting up of special server for exchange of materials between the KCL and UL. Issues related to versions and beta testing were discussed, as the materials are now in more than 10,000 files. It is expected that the final version of e-books to grow above 50,000 and special care should be taken for the coordination of this activity. A special internal monitoring was agreed to keep the final project development in time scale. The project working groups reported their feedback and a joint strategy was agreed in order to complete all improvements by July 2004. UL reported that they shall be ready with the new Internet web site "Training-on-Line" by July, in order to begin beta testing and debugging. Another training introduction will begin during the summer. Dissemination was discussed and two important meetings agreed as priority - EFOMP Conference in Cyprus and the American Conference in Pittsburgh. Special discussion was made for the future activities after the end of the project - both for the update of the materials and addressing the need identified in Trieste.
EMIT DIGITAL DICTIONARY
January 2004
Following the Euro Conference two additional languages (Portuguese and Spanish) were added to the Medical Physics e-Dictionary. This way the total number of words in the Dictionary grows to 25,000 (approx. 3500 in each language). Special gratitude was expressed to the contributors of these translations -
German Translation: Markus Buchgeister, Gunther Helms, Stefan Delorme
French Translation: Alain Noel, Jean-Yves Giraud, Hélène Bouscayrol, Louis Blache
Swedish Translation: Inger-Lena Lamm, Monica Almquist, Ronnie Wirestam, Sven-Erik Strand,
Bo-Anders Jonsson, Michael Ljungberg, Freddy Stahlberg, Thomas Jansson
Italian Translation: Franco Milano
Portuguese Translation: Ana Pascoal
Spanish Translation: Ignacio Hernando, Ana Paula Millán, Alejandro García
Digital Dictionary Database and Programming: Magdalena Stoeva and Assen Cvetkov
EURO CONFERENCE on MEDICAL PHYSICS TRAINING EMIT
November 2003
During September 1998 the EMERALD project Consortium organised the first International Conference on Medical Physics Training. This conference focused not only on the provision of professional training in Europe, but also on the implementation and use of the first e-Learning materials in the profession - EMERALD (covering X-ray Diagnostic Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Radiotherapy Physics).
Five years after this Conference (on 10-11 October 2003) the new project Consortium EMIT (incorporating most of the participants of the EMERALD project) organised another similar International Conference on Medical Physics Training. The objectives of this Second Conference were to assess the materials of the project EMIT (focused on MRI and Ultrasound Imaging Physics) and to discuss the development and delivery of Medical Physics training using e-Learning materials. The venue for this Conference was again kindly provided by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy.
Eminent professors and lecturers from 24 European countries, including representatives of IOMP, IFMBE, EFOMP, AFOMP and AAPM attended the Conference. Each participant received a free copy of the new e-Learning materials EMIT and took part in Working Groups discussing various elements of the training provision. The feedback sessions strongly supported the use of e-Learning in Medical Physics training and education as a very effective tool to study this complex field. It was noted that so far the EMERALD training materials are used in some 65 countries (including at the International Medical Physics College at ICTP) and this requires help with terminology translation from English. In this connection the EMIT project is preparing an e-Dictionary of Medical Physics terms. So far the Dictionary includes cross-translation from English, French, German, Italian, Swedish and Portuguese. Further expansion of the e-Dictionary was discussed with the colleagues from other countries. More information could be obtained from www.emerald2.net .
The Conference concluded with a Declaration of Intend, signed by all delegates, stating: "We all participants at the European Conference on Medical Physics Training, organized by EU Leonardo Project EMIT at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, ICTP, Trieste, Italy (10-11 October 2003), underline the very important role of Medical Physics Training for the effective and safe use of medical equipment in healthcare. The education and training in Medical Physics is vital for the development of healthcare and we highly appreciate the activities of the European Union, IAEA, ICTP, IOMP, IFMBE, EFOMP and other international and national institutions in this direction. We declare our intend to collaborate in the development of various initiatives in education and training, including e-Learning, related to medical technology (in its medical physics, medical engineering and medical application aspects), which will complement and integrate existing programmes. In this connection we agree to form a Network, which will facilitate our aim to harmonise activities and opportunities available to students and colleagues working in healthcare throughout Europe and other countries".
FOURTH EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
July 2003
The 4th meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was in Grenoble (26-28 July 2003). At this meeting the materials evaluation was discussed and feedback collected. All materials for both modules are now approx. 500 pages and 1000 images. It was agreed for more IDL simulations to be added, but this will increase the time for each module finalisation. The practical testing of the tasks was discussed - according to the students this will be an excellent materials for training. French translations will need to be completed at an later stage, as this will have to incorporate the feedback. Dissemination activities were reported and further actions planned. Special attention will be given first to the World Congress in Sydney and later at the EuroConference.
THIRD EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
February 2003
The third meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was organised by the European Federation of Organisations for Medical Physics (EFOMP) at the Curie Institute in Paris, France (8-9 February 2003). This was an enlarged meeting and all partners assessed the project progress and prepared updated work plan for the second phase. Almost all training tasks and pictures have been made and are ready for work-based hospital testing next month. The preparations for the EUROCONFERENCE were also assessed and plans were made for the future dissemination activities. Special attention was given to the e-workbooks (to be developed during the second project phase). It was agreed for an extra Consortium meeting to be held to evaluate these and to discuss the materials to be presented at the World Congress in Sydney and the EMIT Euroconference in ICTP, Italy. It was concluded, that despite late start the project has completed successfully its first phase. The feedback received from trainees, colleagues (so far) and the UK Leonardo Conference in Birmingham show a very high level of appreciation. It was agreed for a group of medical users to begin testing some of the tasks from April. The Consortium agreed on the project brochure and CD covers.
EMIT IMAGE DATABASE AND e-DICTIONARY (ALPHA VER.) TESTED
December 2002
The alpha version of EMIT Image Database (IDB) the e-Dictionary were tested with the representatives of UK ECOTEC. The IDB is in two volumes (on two separate CDs) and for the moment includes approx. 800 digital pictures of various imaging equipment, procedures, tests, artefacts, etc. The images are in JPG format (captions are in preparation and will be added soon). The IDB follows the format of the Emerald IDB (based on ThumbsPlus software), including thumbs, pictures and some image-processing functions. The next phase includes testing of the IDB by trainees and referees and further merging the IDB with the training tasks of the EMIT Workbooks. All these materials will follow internal and external evaluation at the EUROCONFERENCE (10-11 October 2003, ICTP, Trieste, Italy).
The alpha version of EMIT e-Dictionary was also tested and the terms collection is already building several thousands entries. The development of the e-Dictionary will be accelerated in order to present its beta version at the World Congress in Sydney (August 2003).
EMIT EUROCONFERENCE DATE AGREED
October 2002
The EMIT EUROCONFERENCE date was agreed as 10-11 October 2003. The venue of the Conference will be at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics Abdus Salam (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. The objective of the Conference will be to discuss the Training in MRI and Ultrasound Imaging Technology with experienced colleagues from Europe and the use of EMIT Training materials for the purpose.
The decision for this venue was linked with the previous very successful Euroconference on the Training in Medical Radiation Physics at ICTP. Additionally the regular ICTP International College on Medical Physics this year (2-27 September 2002) included a special session on training using Emerald and Emit materials. This activity is presented in more detail at the IOMP Journal “Medical Physics World”.
SECOND EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
August 2002
The second meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was held in Lund on 3-4 August 2002. The partners congratulated the development of a new Medical Physics building at Lund University, which will include special laboratories for e-learning. This development has been significantly facilitated by the excellent results of the e-learning materials developed under the project Emerald. Most of the EMIT e-learning materials will be used at these new premises. The partners discussed in detail the progress of the training tasks. The first draft of the Emit timetables includes 50 training tasks for the MRI training and 48 training tasks for US training. The tasks, the associated images and the timetables will be presented to the external referees of Emit after the next Consortium meeting. The Coordinator presented the beta version of the Medical Physics Dictionary, developed with the help of the colleagues from the Emerald II (Inter-University Medical Physics Centre in Plovdiv). The tasks for collection of terms and their translation were agreed. It was also agreed that the EMIT Euro-Conference will be held in ICTP Trieste on 10-11 October 2003.
EMIT PROGRESS AND INITIAL DISSEMINATION
June 2002
Emit partners exchanged information on the development of the training tasks and the collection of images for the Image Database (IDB). Some of the tasks (those tackling medical usage) have already been formulated and drafted. The project Co-ordinator initiated negotiations related with the future dissemination activity EMIT Euro-Conference. It was agreed that the International Centre for Theoretical Physics Abdus Salam (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy will be the ideal place for this activity due to its very good Conference facilities and links with the previous project Emerald. As an additional dissemination activity, the project Co-ordinator will present the Emit project to the participants to the ICTP International College on Medical Physics (2-27 September 2002, ICTP, Trieste).
FIRST EMIT CONSORTIUM MEETING
March 2002
The first meeting of the EMIT Project Consortium was held in London on 15-16 February 2002. The Consortium agreed on the first draft of the training timetables for Ultrasound (US) and Magnetic Resonance (MRI) Imaging training and identified the teams who will develop the training tasks. The project team noted a good progress with this activity, although these began several months after the official contractual date. This progress is due to the experience which some of the project partners have from the previous Leonardo project EMERALD. It was decided that the format of the EMIT training tasks will closely follow the Emerald format. It was also decided some of the tasks to deal with problems related with the medical use of this technology, thus increasing the field of the use of some training tasks (for radiographers and radiologists). The Consortium agreed on the Internal Contracts and set deadlines for the next activities as per the project plan. It was decided the first presentation of EMIT to be at the French Medical Physics Conference (Grenoble, June’02).
