Federating learning management systems for medical education: A persuasive technologies perspective

In the current explosion of internet technologies and exponentially increasing usage of the web there exists a need for effective searching and retrieval of information and resources. This is particularly true in medical and health care education. In the mEducator EUC funded project (www.mEducator.net), the collbaorators are attempting to develop technologies that will enable the above notion by means of multiple technological approaches, including one based on Web 2.0 principles and mashup technologies, and another based on web 3.0 and semantic (or linked) services. In this paper we view this problem through the recent notions of persuasive technologies and we explain how these are taken into account in the problem of metadata completion, a necessary action for linking resources in open educational repositories or learning management systems. The basic principles of persuasive technologies taken into account together with their application in the above field are explained and demonstrated with examples.