TIME-ITEM is an

ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities exis ...

of ''Topics'' that describes the content of undergraduate

medical education Medical education is education related to the practice of being a medical practitioner, including the initial training to become a physician (i.e., medical school and internship (medical), internship) and additional training thereafter (e.g., Re ...

. TIME is an acronym for "Topics for Indexing Medical Education"; ITEM is an acronym for "Index de thèmes pour l’éducation médicale." Version 1.0 of the taxonomy has been released and the

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is accessed using a web browser. Web applications are delivered on the World Wide Web to users with an active network connection. History In earlier computing models like client-serve ...

that allows users to work with it is still under development. Its developers are seeking more collaborators to expand and validate the taxonomy and to guide future development of the web application.

History

The development of TIME-ITEM began at the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa ...

in 2006. It was initially developed to act as a content

index Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...

for a curriculum map being constructed there. After its initial presentation at the 2006 conference of the Canadian Association for Medical Education, early collaborators included the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

McMaster University McMaster University (McMaster or Mac) is a public research university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main McMaster campus is on of land near the residential neighbourhoods of Ainslie Wood and Westdale, adjacent to the Royal Botanical Ga ...

and Queen's University.

Features

The TIME-ITEM ontology is unique in that it is designed specifically for undergraduate medical education. As such, it includes fewer strictly biomedical entries than other common medical

vocabularies ''Vocabularies'' (stylized as ''VOCAbuLarieS'') is a studio album by American jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin that was recorded with composer Roger Treece and released on April 6, 2010 by EmArcy in the United States. Described on McFerrin's website ...

(such as

MeSH A mesh is a barrier made of connected strands of metal, fiber, or other flexible or ductile materials. A mesh is similar to a web or a net in that it has many attached or woven strands. Types * A plastic mesh may be extruded, oriented, ex ...

SNOMED CT SNOMED CT or SNOMED Clinical Terms is a systematically organized computer-processable collection of medical terms providing codes, terms, synonyms and definitions used in clinical documentation and reporting. SNOMED CT is considered to be the mo ...

) but more entries relating to the medico-social concepts of communication, collaboration, professionalism, etc. Topics within TIME-ITEM are arranged poly-

hierarchically A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...

, meaning any Topic can have more than one

parent A parent is a caregiver of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is the caretaker of a child (where "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). A ''biological parent'' is a person whose gamete resulted in a child, a male t ...

. Relationships are established based on the logic that learning about a Topic contributes to the learning of all its parent Topics. In addition to housing the ontology of Topics, the TIME-ITEM web application can house multiple Outcome frameworks. All Outcomes, whether private Outcomes entered by single institutions or publicly available medical education Outcomes (such as CanMeds 2005) are hierarchically linked to one or more Topics in the ontology. In this way, the contribution of each Topic to multiple Outcomes is made explicit.Willett TG, Marshall KC, Broudo M & Clarke M. TIME as a generic index for outcome-based medical education. ''Medical Teacher'' 2008; 29(7):655-9. The structure of the

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...

documents exported from TIME-ITEM (which contain the hierarchy of Outcomes and TIME-ITEM Topics) is being developed alongside the MedBiquitous Competency standards. The taxonomy currently exists in English only but translation to Canadian French is in progress.

Applications

TIME-ITEM is intended to be a general-use ontology for medical education informatics. It has two primary potential applications: # Inclusion in curriculum maps. By mapping learning objects or sessions to TIME-ITEM Topics in a curriculum map, the map becomes searchable for both granular and broad concepts. If one or more Outcome frameworks are included with the Topic ontology, then the contribution of each curricular element to one or more Outcomes is made explicit. This also facilitates curriculum

evaluation Evaluation is a systematic determination and assessment of a subject's merit, worth and significance, using criteria governed by a set of standards. It can assist an organization, program, design, project or any other intervention or initiative ...

in terms of one or more outcome frameworks. # Indexing learning, assessment and portfolio objects. Metatagging

learning object A learning object is "a collection of content items, practice items, and assessment items that are combined based on a single learning objective". The term is credited to Wayne Hodgins, and dates from a working group in 1994 bearing the name. The c ...

s or assessment objects with a controlled vocabulary enhances the organization and retrieval of objects from a

repository Repository may refer to: Archives and online databases * Content repository, a database with an associated set of data management tools, allowing application-independent access to the content * Disciplinary repository (or subject repository), an ...

. Metatagging

electronic portfolio An electronic portfolio (also known as a digital portfolio, online portfolio, e-portfolio, e-folio, or eFolio) is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web. Such electronic evidence may include input te ...

entries allows one to show how multiple entries "add up" to a demonstration of competence with respect to certain educational outcomes. The possibility of expanding or modifying TIME-ITEM for use in postgraduate/continuing medical education and in nursing education is currently being explored.

References

{{reflist

External links

* http://www.time-item.org (Registration required, by application only) Library cataloging and classification Medical classification Ontology (information science) Medical education

History

Features

Applications

See also

References

External links