The Gateway Curriculum requires a digital teaching and learning platform designed for Competency-Based Medical Education (CMBE). CBME is built on a foundation of formative and summative assessments of learning, with transparent use of aggregated assessment data to make progression and competency attainment decisions for all students. The Elentra Teaching and Learning Platform began at Queen’s University School of Medicine in Ontario, Canada in 2008. An early consortium of medical school partners designed Elentra to meet a shared goal of delivering a seamless, integrated CBME experience for students and faculty.
ETIU’s Carolyn Dufault and Emily Thompson discuss plans for the new Keystone platform
In the spring of 2019, Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) signed on to become Elentra’s 19th consortium member. At the time of its rollout in July 2020, Elentra will be called Keystone here at WUSM, to align with the Gateway Curriculum theme and as a reminder of the centrality of this new digital platform to the successful delivery of the MD curriculum.
Keystone was carefully reviewed and selected as our new teaching and learning platform by the Educational Technology and Innovation Unit (ETIU) in close collaboration with education leaders in the Office of Education, key stakeholders within Washington University Information Technology, and after local demonstrations for students and faculty here at WUSM in January 2018.
During the selection process, we considered the possibility of continuing to use our current learning management systems, Canvas and OASIS. It was determined that continued use of these two platforms, which are not integrated with each other, and which are missing key assessment functions, was not a feasible approach for a new CBME curriculum. Canvas—the university’s campus-wide LMS—is an excellent course management system, however it lacks the ability to aggregate, visualize, and report on learning artifacts (including content and assessments) at the program level. For CBME to work, we need a program-level tool, and that’s what we will have in Keystone.
In the coming months leading up to the July 2020 launch of the new curriculum, ETIU will work closely with the curriculum design teams and other key stakeholders to develop Keystone into a fully functioning integrated teaching and learning platform. For more information or a demonstration of the Keystone platform, contact ETIU at omseedtech@wustl.edu.