Integrating medicinal learning objects with daily duties

Lifelong learning is a term that is widely used in a variety of context. The term recognizes that learning is not confined to the classroom, but takes place throughout life and in a range of situations. The authors of this chapter have analyzed lifelong learning in healthcare sector, where the fast development of drug treatment requires special knowledge that needs to be renewed frequently. This chapter analyzes various ways of ensuring that the employers of medicinal organizations are aware of the relevant medicinal instructions such as medicinal learning objects and guides. In particular, the authors consider three complementary ways for the dissemination of medicinal instructions: (i) by providing keyword-based searching, (ii) by providing ontology-based searching, and (iii) by automatic integration of medicinal instructions to employers' day-to-day work tasks. The integration can be based either on the similarity of the metadata descriptions of the tasks and learning objects, or on the ontology which specifies the relationships of the tasks and instructions. The authors' argument is that integration is most preferable as medicinal instructions are provided just-in-time and tailored to their specific needs. In addition, a notable gain of ontology based integration is that employees will be aware of the existence of the all relevant instructions.