The Educational Informatics Laboratory represents the collaboration of a few like-minded individuals who endeavor to make the world a slightly better place.

We design, create, operate and evaluate learning tools that empower learners - from digital textbooks on CD-ROMs and personal digital assistants to digital libraries to learning collaboratories. Our work is deeply interwoven within the fabric of the new discipline of Web Science.

Our current focus is on learning tools that assist learning at the point-of-care and learning tools that allow a curriculum to unfold in practice.

Since 1989, through these tools, we have practiced a form of intellectual philanthropy.

The Internet serves an amplifier for us in that it allows the efforts of a few to have a global impact.

Our learning tools currently help over 3 million learners each year.

Our work has been funded by a broad spectrum of organizations including the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Library of Medicine, Radiological Society of North America, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Apple Computer, and ourselves.

Laboratory Principals

• Donna M. D'Alessandro, M.D.
• Michael P. D'Alessandro, M.D.
• ...and the rest of the team

• 1989 - Educational Technology Network (ETNet) - a medical education learning collaboratory
• 1991 - ElectricDiffuseLung and ElectricAirway digital textbooks - (first medical digital textbooks)
• 1992 - Virtual Hospital - a digital library of health information - (first medical digital library on the Internet.) [Reviews] [Note: the initial vision for Virtual Hospital was for what today would be termed an "eHealth" system. Thus, the first eHealth system described in the literature was Virtual Hospital. Ultimately, given our resources, we chose to focus on the digital library portion of the vision, and thus that is what Virtual Hospital is known for today. Our eHealth vision was ultimately implemented in the UIHealthCare.com eHealth portal]
• 1994 - Hitchhiker's Guide to Pediatric Imaging handheld digital textbook - (first radiology handheld digital textbook)
• 1994 - Virtual Children's Hospital - a digital library of pediatric information - (first pediatric digital library on the Internet) [Reviews]
• 1994 - Paediapaedia - an imaging encyclopedia of pediatric disease - (influenced the information architecture of commercial radiology references, such as those published by Amirsys)
• 1995 - MedicalStudent.com - a digital library of authoritative medical information for all students of medicine [Reviews]
• 1995 - Society for Pediatric Radiology Online
• 1995 - Ambulatory Pediatric Association Online
• 1995 - Society of Thoracic Radiology Online
• 1996 - Virtual Pediatric Patients - a digital storytelling system for teaching common pediatric problems
• 1996 - Back Pain in Children
• 1997 - E-Map - an electronic map of high quality information on the Internet [Reviews]
• 1997 - Virtual Naval Hospital - a digital library of naval medicine and military medicine [Reviews]
• 1997 - PediatricRadiology.com - a pediatric radiology and pediatric imaging digital library [Reviews]
• 1997 - Correlapaedia - a correlative encyclopedia of pediatric imaging, surgery, and pathology
• 1997 - MetaTextbook of Pediatric Radiology
• 1997 - Thoracopaedia - an imaging encyclopedia of pediatric thoracic disease
• 1998 - GeneralPediatrics.com - the general pediatrician's view of the Internet [Reviews]
• 1999 - UIHealthCare.com - the eHealth portal of University of Iowa Health Care
• 2000 - Naval Open Source Intelligence - a digital library of world naval operational news, curated from open source intelligence [Reviews]
• 2001 - Common Questions Quick Answers Pediatrics
• 2002 - RadiologyEducation.com - a digital library of radiology education resources [Reviews]
• 2002 - AskRadiographics.org - a demonstration point-of-care reference for radiology learning and continuing education - (influenced the creation of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology's Ask RadPath and AskAFIP sites)
• 2003 - BiodefenseEducation.org - a biodefense digital library and learning collaboratory [Reviews]
• 2003 - PediatricEducation.org - a pediatric digital library and learning collaboratory [Reviews]
• 2006 - Virtual Pediatric Hospital - a digital library of pediatric information [Reviews]
• 2006 - Anatomy Atlases - a digital library of anatomy [Reviews]
• 2006 - SearchingRadiology.com - searching radiology peer-reviewed information [Reviews]
• 2007 - RCollaboration - an on-line community of practice for radiologists at all levels of training [Reviews]
• 2007 - Iowa FromBenchToBedside Collaboratory - a community of practice for all those involved in the University of Iowa's Institute for Clinical and Translational Science [Reviews]
• 2008 - War Studies Primer - an introductory course on the study of war. [Reviews]

• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - BiodefenseEducation.org
• National Institutes of Health - Iowa FromBenchToBedside Collaboratory
• National Library of Medicine - Educational Technology Network, Virtual Hospital, Virtual Children's Hospital
• Radiological Society of North America - PediatricRadiology.com, RCollaboration
• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - GeneralPediatrics.com
• United States Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery - Virtual Naval Hospital
• Apple Computer - Virtual Hospital, Virtual Children's Hospital
• Ambulatory Pediatric Association - Ambulatory Pediatric Association Online
• Society for Pediatric Radiology - Society for Pediatric Radiology Online
• Society of Thoracic Radiology - Society of Thoracic Radiology Online
• University of Iowa - Virtual Hospital, Virtual Children's Hospital, UIHealthCare.com
• Ourselves - Anatomy Atlases, AskRadiographics.org, Back Pain in Children, BiodefenseEducation.org, Common Questions Quick Answers Pediatrics, Correlapaedia, E-Map.com, GeneralPediatrics.com, Hitchhiker's Guide to Pediatric Imaging, MedicalStudent.com, MetaTextbook of Pediatric Radiology, Naval Open Source Intelligence, Paediapaedia, PediatricEducation.org, PediatricRadiology.com, RadiologyEducation.com, SearchingRadiology.com, Thoracopaedia, Virtual Pediatric Hospital, Virtual Pediatric Patients, War Studies Primer

• Widernet mirrors PediatricEducation.org, Virtual Pediatric Hospital, and Anatomy Atlases to 55 universities in 17 countries in the developing world (Bangladesh, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe).

• The Medical Library Association's John P. McGovern M.D. Award in Information and Communication for Virtual Hospital
• Society for Pediatric Radiology's Singleton-Taybi Education Award for pediatric radiology education
• Scientific American's Sci/Tech Web Award for Virtual Hospital
• Computer Museum's exhibition entitled "The Networked Planet: Traveling the Information Highway" featured Virtual Hospital
• Department of the Navy's Award for Knowledge Sharing - Outstanding Knowledge Expert System for Virtual Naval Hospital
• American Academy of Pediatrics' Best of the Pediatric Internet Award for Correlapaedia, ElectricAirway and Paediapaedia
• The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog (First Edition) recognized Educational Technology Network (ETNet) as one of the original medical Internet sites

• International Association of Business Communicators Golden Quill Award in organizational communication for UIHealthCare.com

Last Revised: January 4, 2008
URL: http://www.educationalinformatics.org/