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ArticlesVolume 1, Issue 1 - Preface

MEFANET Journal 2013; 1(1): 4

EDITORIAL MATERIAL

Preface

Daniel Schwarz

Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses, Faculty of Medicine at Masaryk University, Czech Republic
schwarz
@iba.muni.cz

 

We would like to present, with great pleasure, the inaugural volume of a new scholarly journal, “­MEFANET Journal (abbrev. Mefanet J)”. This journal follows the edition of the annual proceedings RITM report 01–02 and ­MEFANET report 01–05, published between 2005 and 2012. It is devoted to the gamut of medical education science issues, from theoretical aspects to application-dependent studies and the validation of emerging technologies. This new journal was envisioned and founded to represent the growing needs of computational science as an emerging and increasingly vital field, now widely recognized as an integral part of medical education scientific and technical investigations. Its mission is to become the premier vehicle for disseminating information about MEdical FAculties NETwork, which covers all Czech and Slovak medical faculties as well as schools or faculties of health care sciences.

This inaugural volume comprises four original articles, one review and one detailed editorial report on the last MEFANET conference 2012. The presented articles can be categorized into the following groups:

  • e-learning in medical education,
  • multimedia,
  • e-health and telemedicine.

The original articles exemplify the use and exploration of interactive learning programs and systems in various domains of medical education. They provide invaluable insights into the studied problems and offer convincing case studies and experimental analysis. The review is concerned with history and progress of information technology in health care from a perspective of an experienced computer scientist.

I am very thankful to everybody within the MEFANET community who supported the idea of creating a new MEFANET subline – the MEFANET Journal. We are certain that this very first issue will be followed by many others, reporting new developments in medical informatics, medical education, e-learning and thereby promoting the synergism among these disciplines. This issue would not have been possible without the great support of the Editorial Board members, and I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of them. I would also like to express my gratitude to the honorary advisors of the journal: Assoc. Prof. Ladislav Dušek, Prof. ­Vladimír Mihál, Prof. Aleš Ryška and Prof. Stanislav Štípek. It is my hope that this fine collection of articles will be a valuable resource for MEFANET Journal readers and will stimulate further research into the vibrant area of medical education science.

June 2013

Daniel Schwarz
Editor-in-chief

Created by Institute of Biostatistics and Analyses, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University