Proposal for a Web-Based Open Pharmacometrics Curriculum
Marc R. Gastonguay(1), Jonathan L. French(1), William R. Gillespie(1), Joseph Hebert(1), Jeffrey S. Barrett(2)
(1)Metrum Institute, Tariffville, CT, USA, (2)Sanofi, Bridgewater, NJ, USA.
Objectives: Given the small number of formal academic training programs and associated faculty, resource sharing and collaboration in pharmacometrics (PM) training are critical to the continued development of the discipline [1]. The objectives of this work were: 1). to quantify the extent and intensity of global interest in an open pharmacometrics curriculum (OPC), and 2). to identify additional web-based resources that could potentially make up a complete OPC.
Methods: Six semester-long courses on various PM-specific topics were developed, with audio/video, recordings and supporting example files. The resulting 126 videos were made open and freely available by posting on a YouTube channel [2], with simultaneous announcement on the NMusers discussion group. Usage data from Google web analytics were collected over a 4-month period. Web searches were performed to identify additional open courses, relevant to an OPC.
Results: Over the 4-month period, lectures were viewed 15,240 times, from individuals in 76 different countries, for a total of 129,375 minutes watched. A pattern of short views in the initial week of availability, was followed by a pattern of longer view times (averaging approximately 20 min. each), which was sustained over the time studied. Views primarily originated from computers (88%), followed by tablets (7.6%), and mobile phones (4.4%). 200 individuals subscribed to the channel. Additional freely available, open web courses were identified to supplement the OPC, in topic areas such as: math, pharmacology, programming languages, and statistics.
Conclusions: Results reveal a strong global interest in an OPC, with evidence of in-depth study of the materials, and ready availability of additional training content. Given the positive initial results, future efforts will focus on building a complete OPC.
References:
[1] Barrett JS, Fossler MJ, Cadieu KD, Gastonguay MR. Pharmacometrics: a multidisciplinary field to facilitate critical thinking in drug development and translational research settings. J Clin Pharmacol. 2008 May;48(5):632-49.
[2] http://www.youtube.com/user/metruminst
