How can AnatomyTOOL help you to create distance learning in anatomy

How can AnatomyTOOL help you to create distance learning in anatomy?

AnatomyTOOL is a platform for open licensed anatomy teaching and learning materials, created by Dutch and Flemish departments of Anatomy. Read more.

If you create distance learning materials, you will need pictures, 3D models, etc. to base your work on. If you offer your learning material online you cannot use copyrighted imagery from books and publishers, or only at significant costs. Uploading copyrighted materials in your institutional learning environment also meets increasing charges. But how to get useful anatomy assets?

Instead of creating everything yourself, you might also want to refer to existing teaching materials. But how to find good materials?

In both cases, AnatomyTOOL can help you. AnatomyTOOL has collected anatomy (references to) imagery and teaching materials from sources world-wide that are free to use, selected by lecturers in anatomy. Read on.
 

If you want to create your own tutorials, presentations, etc. and need anatomy imagery that you are allowed to use freely:

1. search AnatomyTOOL by anatomical structure, or
2. check the collections of recommended materials per subject, or
3. check recommended external sites (carefully selected for free use and quality).
4. browse images (presently: 1800 images), 3D models (presently 300 models or videos of 3D models), or videos. Remember screenshots of 3D models also make nice pictures!
   Ooops... it's not yet perfect.

If you look for ready-to-use tutorials to refer you students to:

1. check recommended external sites. Several have tutorials, online lectures, etc.
2. search AnatomyTOOL by anatomical structure, and look for 3D models (includes tutorials explaining with 3D models), videos, or documents (includes web sites and interactive pages).

If you want to create your own exercise quizzes:

1. search for existing questions on AnatomyTOOL (read how - follows [basically: log in > questions > type a structure > find questions]) to include 'as is' in your quizzes , or
2. search for existing questions on AnatomyTOOL, clone them and modify them to your wish (Read how - manuals) or
3. make your own questions on AnatomyTOOL (Read how - manuals).
4. create quizzes with the existing, modified or new questions (Read how - manuals).

If you look for ready-to-use exercises to refer you students to:

1. check quizzes on AnatomyTOOL.
2. check recommended external sites, it is stated which have exercise material

    

What am I allowed to do with the material?
Each item states the license under which you can use it. There are the following possibilities:

• item is in Public domain (because the copyright period has elapsed, or because the item has a CC0 tag): You are free to use the item as you wish, you even do not need to give attribution (however, it is good practice to do so).
• item has a Creative Commons license. You are free to use the item but you must follow the requirements of the license. Click the license link at the item for details. A very clear starter explanation (Dutch) is here. All items on AnatomyTOOL have a ready to copy and paste text at the bottom of their 'use' page. For instance, see the bottom of this page.
• item has no open license, but states you are allowed to use it for educational purposes.  Well, that's what you are allowed to do.
• item states 'copyright', or 'all rights reserved' or it states nothing at all: you are not allowed to copy and paste the item in your work and distribute it. But: if the item is legally online, you are free to link to it.

Read more: checklist Handout 'Zoeken en inzetten van open of auteursrechtelijk beschermd materiaal in online onderwijs'

How do I best record my screen? - Screencast software

• Workshop Presentation at NAV 2019 (Dutch Assoc Anatomists) with tests and shots of screencast software (Dutch)

Finally...
If AnatomyTOOL is useful for you, consider offering any anatomy teaching material (pictures, images, videos, 3D models, tutorials) you own, under an open license on AnatomyTOOL, so other people can benefit too!

Oops... AnatomyTOOL is work in progress. There are still some known bugs and shortcomings. Most notably:

• region filter only partially working
• systems filter selects to broadly (eg cardiovascular system finds all items with a blood vessel in it)
• search by a search term and then filter the results: apparently gives no results. (refresh page to see the results)
• browsing by tab 'Discover' > region/ system gives unintuitive results

Please bear with us while we're working on those.