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College of Public Health a pioneer of online learning

admin — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

First published on May 14, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

Long before the deluge of online learning became a given of modern education replete with a glut of overnight “universities,” USF’s College of Public Health launched a distance-learning presence that was formidable before online classes even existed.

From 1990-93, 45 state health department employees in Tallahassee earned master of public health degrees from USF via the old-fashioned method of distance learning. Every Tuesday, a COPH professor would journey to Tallahassee to teach a three-hour course that evening, said Dr. Charles Mahan, at that time state health officer, and later COPH dean.

Dr. Charles Mahan

“We gave them Tuesday afternoon off, and they gave up their evening,” Mahan explained. “One professor would come up for a month and do the whole core segment of epidemiology and biostatistics, and then somebody else would come up and do the whole core of community and family health.

“When people in practice throughout the state at the health departments saw what we were doing up there, they came to the college and said, ‘Please, do that for our staff.’ That’s when we began the distance-learning program.”

Technology offered a more efficient means by 1994, when COPH began beaming public health courses via satellite to 33 host sites at state and local health departments across Florida.

Answering a mandate

“USF College of Public Health had a very good partnership with the Florida Department of Health,” recalled Sandhya Srinivasan, COPH director of educational technology and assessment, “and through this partnership, we were able to deliver public health education while utilizing health department meeting space and satellite equipment that was already part of the Florida Department of Health satellite network. We were able to piggyback on that and beam our classes to busy health professionals.”

Sandhya Srinivasan, MPH, MEd

WUSF-TV had an uplink facility, Srinivasan explained, which enabled COPH to buy satellite time at the discounted educational rate. The telecasts were cabled to the uplink facility in Clearwater, then beamed to the satellite from there.

As part of the founding of the college a decade earlier, USF and COPH had a legislative mandate to train public health employees statewide, Srinivasan said. A needs assessment at the time signaled the need when it found that very few public health workers had had any formal public health training.

“They had come to public health through medicine or nursing or sociology, but they were not trained in public health,” she said, “and so the college had a huge challenge in front of it.”

Two evening courses were initiated to meet that challenge, she said. Each met once a week for three hours, and each had an on-site technical point person should the satellite or any link in the technology fail. Technical and material needs were communicated via phone or fax in those days before the advent of personal computers and e-mail.

Given those limitations, early growth was slow, but within a few years, the need for more courses and faster, easier means of delivery coincided well with the PC age. In 2001, Srinivasan said, technical advances and growing interest in the program sparked its rapid expansion.

“We started incrementally,” she said, “moving our classes from satellite to a blended online-and-satellite format.”

The Department of Education weighed in with a $3-million grant for instruction in technology. That IIT grant, as it was known (standing for Innovations in Technology and Training), enabled the college to hire instructional designers who brought in multi-media components that completed the transition from satellite-online hybrid to a fully online operation.

From online courses to online degrees

With all classes delivered entirely via Internet, geographic limitations were gone. Anyone, anywhere could take courses on the World Wide Web, and host sites were things of the past. It wouldn’t be long before the state’s first public health college conferred the state’s first fully online public health degrees.

According to figures supplied by David Hogeboom, statistical data analyst for COPH, the online degree program has conferred 383 MPH degrees in various concentrations since spring 2001. The total represents more than one-fifth of all MPH degrees and more than one-eighth of all degrees awarded by COPH in that timeframe. Srinivasan said nine students graduating on Dec. 13, 1998, from the Public Health Practice program were the first to earn their degrees via satellite.

COPH distance learning’s first nine MPH graduates made headlines in 1998.

“Today, in addition to public health practice, we have five other master’s concentrations online and 11 online graduate certificates,” Srinivasan said.

Unlike other classrooms, the virtual variety requires technical design specifically geared to disseminating educational materials. Accordingly, full-time instructional designers are a big part of the picture at COPH online.

“Our office consists of six full-time instructional designers and a graphics designer,” Srinivasan said. “The designers are assigned to particular courses and work hand-in-hand with faculty in preparing course materials and assessments. They are able to parse down a lesson to bare essentials and match the right technology that can deliver that content efficiently to the students.”

Today’s COPH online learning team. Back row, from left: Thomas Reilly, James Taylor, Andres Abril, Carlos Montoya, Samantha Lopez. Front row, from left: Ana Vizcaino, Jung Lim, Sandhya Srinivasan, Trudian Trail-Constant.

Srinivasan said one of the concerns the designers address is interaction.

“It is less than ideal to listen to a talking head for three hours, so we use different types of interactive technologies that enable and even encourage student interaction,” she said.

Much of that interaction involves typed responses, she said, but even that is rapidly changing.

“As part of Canvas, the learning management system at USF, we now have access to an interactive virtual tool called Blackboard Collaborate. Students and instructor log in at a given time and date, and the tools within that virtual classroom allow for interaction. Students and faculty are able to interact via audio, video and whiteboard tools to do everything they could do in a traditional classroom.”

Alison Oberne, MA, MPH, CPH, an instructor in the USF College of Public Health, narrates a lecture for an undergraduate public health course using the recording space in COPH used for recording content for the lectures and modules of most of the college’s online degree programs.

It doesn’t take an instructional designer to appreciate the brightness of COPH’s online future.

When the college launched its online master’s program, Mahan said, deans at other colleges of public health told him it would never work. In fact, he said, deans from the older schools of public health at revered institutions like Harvard and Johns Hopkins flat-out swore they would never do it.

“Now, of course, they all do it,” he said. “Absolutely, we were the first to do it. We were a couple of years ahead of everybody else in offering the full MPH by distance.”

“The tools from the beginning to now have undergone tremendous change,” Srinivasan said. “We are committed to remaining on the cutting edge, so the future of our program will be wherever virtual classroom technology will allow us to go.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health.

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Dr. Adewale Troutman addresses the Minnesota Public Health Association

Peggy — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 16:00:15 +0000

University of South Florida Professor Adewale Troutman, MD, MPH, NA, CPH, gave the keynote address at the Minnesota Public Health Association’s annual meeting in Minneapolis over June 13-14. The meeting focused on Health in All Policies: Creating Health Equity.

Dr. Troutman holds a faculty appointment in the USF College of Public Health and directs the Center for Leadership in Public Health. Additionally, he directs the Public Health Practice Program, which offers a MPH degree in online and executive weekend formats.

In November, Dr. Troutman was installed as president of the American Public Health Association and spoke on their behalf to the Minneapolis delegation.

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Dr. Adewale Troutman addresses New York Medical College graduates

Peggy — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000

University of South Florida Professor Adewale Troutman, MD, MPH, NA, CPH, was the commencement speaker at the Class of 2013 commencement at New York Medical College. The ceremony took place at Carnegie Hall in Manhattan on May 23.

In November, Dr. Troutman was installed as president of the American Public Health Association and addressed the recent graduates on the association’s behalf.

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Executive MPH Program Traveled to Panama

schurch1 — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:00:08 +0000

Ten students from the Public Health Practice Program traveled to Panama City, Panama on for a group field experience opportunity under the guidance of Dr. Hana Osman and Somer Burke. Aracely Quintero, Director of the USF Health Program in Panama, tailored an immersive experience for the students consisting of three parts: Introduction and history of the Panama Canal, evaluation of the Panama’s health system, and cultural immersion with an indigenous group.

The USF Health Panama Program faculty and staff delivered interesting lectures for the students. Dr. Arlene Calvo, Community and Family Health and Global Health Professor, discussed historical aspects of public health and its impact building the Panama Canal. Dr. Arturo Rebollón, Project Coordinator and USF Health Alumnus, shared his experience in the blood donation system of Panama and joined the group during the visits to primary care level clinics.

The MPH group visited several private and public health hospitals and clinics, including Punta Pacifica Hospital, Children’s Hospital, the National Cancer Institute, and Paraíso Health Center. These visits promoted the discussion and comparison of the health systems of the US and Panama. Other visits included the Peace Corps and the Panama Immunization Program. Panama has 95% vaccination coverage and is recognized as a pioneer in vaccine research and development. The week ended with cultural visits to the Panama Canal and an Emberá indigenous village where students learned about traditional practices of the indigenous community.

“This was an unforgettable experience for me and the students. The contrast between metropolitan Panama City with its multi-million dollar high rise apartments that were constructed only in the last 12 years and its older construction, was striking. Visiting the Panama Canal and learning about the public health implications of having an influx of workers and visitors from all around the world on a previously healthy indigenous population, was a real-life public health eye opener. The highlights for me included visiting the outdoor Smithsonian Tropical Research (outdoor) Institute, and canoeing over to the Emberá indigenous village. At the Smithsonian, sloths were hanging from trees and very large iguanas were resting on tree limbs. At the Emberá indigenous village, we were welcomed by adults and children (dressed in their locally made beaded attire) playing music for us as we were hiking up the mountain leading to the village. The lunch they fixed for us made of locally caught fish and cooked plantains was a culinary delight. This was truly an unforgettable experience” said Dr. Osman.

The Public Health Practice Program offers a MPH degree in online and executive weekend formats. It’s housed in the Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice, a vital source for training in the State of Florida.

About USF Health Program in Panama

The USF Health Program in Panama is located in the City of Knowledge, an international complex of organizations dedicated to education, research and innovation. The City of Knowledge also hosts regional offices of the United Nations, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Pan American Health Organization, the Peace Corps, Save the Children, and many other international organizations.

The mission of the USF Health & Education International Foundation is to increase collaboration in education, research and patient care between the faculty and students of USF and of academic and research institutions in Panama, as well as other health professionals and organizations throughout Latin America.

For more information about opportunities for international field experiences and other programs in Panama, please contact Stephen Church (schurch1@health.usf.edu), Director of the Panama Initiative, in the Office of International Programs.

Contributors: Arlene Calvo, Somer Burke, and Hana Osman

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Dr. Adewale Troutman leds webinar on public health core competencies

Peggy — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:00:09 +0000

Date: March 18, 2013
Time: 10 – 11:15 a.m.
Presenter: Dr. Adewale Troutman
Registration Deadline:
March 15, 2013

Webinar Registration Link: https://usfhealth.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_8DtuLegL3LnOUNn. After registering, you will receive information about joining the webinar.

Summary: The Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals are broad sets of skills that are useful in the public health field. These skills strengthen the public health workforce at all career levels and help improve performance.

Audience: This course is designed for public health workers and Florida Department of Health employees.

Objectives:

Describe the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals and identify the 8 domains.
Learn why competencies are important in public health and how they are used.
Find out how public health employees use Core Competency tools.
Recognize the benefits of Core Competency training.
Understand how public health employees can use Core Competencies in various stages of their careers.
Find out how Florida and other states use Core Competencies in public health.

For More Information contact:

Desiree Liburd, MPH
Assistant Program Director
Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice
(813) 974-9070
dliburd@health.usf.edu

Distance learners visit campus for intensive training

npreston — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:01:27 +0000

More than thirty students in the USF College of Public Health’s executive and online MPH degree programs recently convened in Tampa. They traveled from as far away as St. Lucia and California to participate in an intensive, five-day course.

Public Health Seminar (PHC 6930) serves as a capstone course requirement for students enrolled in the weekend and online MPH programs in public health practice, public health administration, and disaster management and humanitarian assistance.

“The course is offered 1-2 times a year and usually brings students to campus for the first time in their degree program,” said Ms. Somer Goad Burke, MPH, CHES, CPH, assistant director of public health practice program. “Many of them were classmates in online courses and enjoy the opportunity to meet face-to-face in a classroom environment.”

Professor Adewale Troutman, MD, MPH, NA, CPH, directs the college’s Center for Leadership in Public Health, as well as the Public Health Practice Program, which offers a MPH degree in online and executive weekend formats. As president of the American Public Health Association, Dr. Troutman led the course from February 6-10 and brought a unique perspective to class.

Guest lecturers included Donna Petersen, ScD, dean of the USF College of Public Health; Hana Osman, PhD, assistant professor and director of the USF Sunshine ERC; and, Dave Rogoff MHA, BSIE, director of the CLPHP; as well representatives from the college’s five academic departments. Additionally, two leaders from the local community shared their expertise with the eager students. Lissette Campos, director of community affairs for ABC Action News, stressed the importance of public health in the media. And, Deborah Austin, PhD, taught a module on coalition building. Dr. Austin is the director of communication and community outreach for with ReachUp, Inc.

* * *

USF is at the forefront of providing quality education in a virtual format and the College of Public Health is helping lead this effort. In August, the College’s advances in distance learning were featured in The Nation’s Health.

“At the University of South Florida College of Public Health, enrollment in online public health degree programs has more than doubled since the middle of the last decade. The university was one of the first to offer distance-based public health education. It began in 1993 with satellite-delivered courses to 33 health departments across Florida,” said Deanna Wathington, MD, MPH, associate dean for academic and student affairs at the College of Public Health. “Today, the college offers more than 70 courses that are fully online, including six online master’s degrees and 10 online graduate certificates with student enrollments of approximately 4,000 students per semester.”

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Public Health and USF Health earn accolades as online education leader

npreston — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 16:01:33 +0000

USF Health’s footprint as a leader the world of online learning continues to grow.

The University of South Florida made its first appearance in the Guide to Online Schools, which uses data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics to rank colleges with the best quality and most affordable online programs. The NCES is the federal government’s primary entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education.

USF came in at number 25 – the only Florida public university on the guide’s 2013 rankings for “best overall” online colleges. The university’s 22 online degree offerings cited included six graduate programs from USF Health.

Three of the USF College of Public Health’s online master’s degree (MPH) programs — in Public Health Administration, Disaster Management, and Public Health Practice – were noted in the Guide to Online Schools annual index. The USF College of Nursing’s master’s (MS) degree in Nursing Education and its Nurse Practitioner graduate program (which offers some components of the program in an online format) were cited, as was the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s online master’s (MS) degree in Medical Sciences (with a Health Sciences concentration).

U.S. News & World Report, meanwhile, has ranked USF’s online graduate education programs 47^th — among the top in the nation.

The Guide to Online Schools listing does not encompass all USF Health’s online offerings. For instance, USF Health just launched an all-online Master of Science in Health Informatics program uniquely housed within the medical school, which is scheduled to begin this summer.

The USF College of Public Health recently added an online format for the MPH degree in epidemiology, scheduled to begin in May. The school was among those featured in a recent Nation’s Health article on the growing popularity of online public health education – particularly among working health professionals and those with geographical constraints.

“We were the first school of public health in the nation to offer a distance-based master’s degree in public health, before online-teaching technology was even available and definitely before it was a cool thing to do,” said Donna Petersen, ScD, dean of the USF College of Public Health.

“Today, we have several full degrees on line and many graduate certificates. Nearly two-thirds of our courses are fully on-line or blended – involving on-line components in order to maximize face-to-face teaching time.”

For more information, go to http://news.usf.edu/article/templates/?a=5093&z=210

Written by Anne DeLotto Baier. Reposted from USF Health News

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