3D Visualisations

As another part of the OVAM project Per Karlsson a recent graduate from the Royal Veterinary College is working to develop an interface which will allow the use of datasets to provide 3D visualisations of anatomical structures. The first area which is being developed as a prototype is the equine distal limb. A high level of functionality will be included in the end product. Each structure will have an information tab which will appear when clicked on with descriptive text, alternative names for the structure, embedded images and related videos as well as links to other resources such as WikiVet pages or other OVAM resources. Structures and body systems can be added and turned on/off and then reset with the possibility to add audio at a later stage in development. The aim is to have created an interface where different datasets can easily be imported to create 3D visualisations. If you are interested in collaborating and have any datasets which you would like to share then please get in touch with us.  

Shown above is a draft view of how the interface may look. The prototype can be viewed at http://www.ovam.scopty.com/

Asset Bank and New Content

The content management system - Asset Bank which we will be using for OVAM is now fully up and running. After lots of work to tweak it for the project to make it the most effective it can be our e-Curators have been busy starting to upload content from their schools. The Asset Bank allows extensive categorisation and meta-tagging of material making it easily searchable. As well as features such as the categorisation and tagging facilities it is also capable of hosting a very wide variety of file formats, allowing us to store the majority of content in one place, minimising any confusion that multiple storage sites would have for users.

Over the next few weeks we will start to be able to offer some examples of the fantastic content which will be included in the museum.

This high quality image of the equine humerus from the right forelimb in situ (lateral view) is from Peter Tomlinsons' project, the curator at the University of Liverpool.

Vet Ed Symposium Edinburgh

The annual Veterinary Education Symposium was held last week in Edinburgh and as part of the program we held an OVAM workshop which was well attended and very productive. After a brief introduction and background we moved on to consider the subject of student projects.  Most of the curators will be working during a decided timeframe on a project to collate some of their schools materials into a more complete resource. However, the key to these being successful learning resources involves the consideration of a number of factors. We divided people into groups and asked them to identify a specific learning resource related to the veterinary curriculum and brainstorm what was important in their opinions when creating these including the key issues which needed to be considered by staff and students.
Some of the points people felt were important were
- The level of detail within the resource, and how to make this appropriate for different curriculums.
- The organisation of the resource, starting with simple and moving to complex.
- The learning objectives for the resource and the areas covered other than just pure structural anatomy such as function and physiology, histology and pathology.
- The contextualisation of the resource and the topic covered.
Ultimately it was concluded that the organisation of these individual resources within the museum structure will be key to the success and usability of this project. We would like to thank everybody who joined us and provided us with a useful insight into what they feel are the key factors which we should be bearing in mind.

e-Curator Projects

Some of our student e-curators have now started work on the OVAM project. They are tasked with speaking to academics at their schools and compiling a list of resources which could be used as part of the museum. Once an inventory of all the resources available has been completed some of the curators will then be going on to put these together into a presentation type project. This provides a good way of improving the usability of resources by combining them with other complimentary items on the same topic, essentially creating a more complete learning resource, which students can then use to revise and learn about the area which it covers.


So far some of the projects which are being undertaken include:
- A series of narrated presentations on the organisation of the somatic and autonomic nervous systems including written information, dissection images, histology photos and animated images.
- Translation of the interactive anatomy programs from the University of Murcia on the anatomy of the bird and the pig .
- An anatomical guide to the skeletal structure of the equine forelimb in the form of a presentation with extensively labeled photos identifying skeletal landmarks, additional information relating structure to function and self-assessment components.
- Labeling and addition of self-assessment to presentations detailing whole horse and ox dissections.

JISC at the RVC

Last week, Paola from JISC visited the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) to discuss progress of the OVAM project. We briefly talked about the recent activities, including the student e-curator weekend and meetings with the publishers. Overall everything seems to be under control so far but we would not want to speak too soon! Most of the resource collection work is yet to commence but we are sure that with so many enthusiastic individuals involved it will be a success.

At the RVC museum

Triggered by the discussion about the Programme event  in Birmingham Nick attended, we talked about how many of the RVC projects funded by JISC made following projects possible, links not always easily identified. It is wonderful how so many ideas that made it to fruition then led to other ideas and projects, often quite innovative. Even OVAM project is really a follow up of Opening Veterinary Access to Literature (OVAL) and has so many connections with another project RVC is also part of, PublishOER.

The visit would not have been complete without showing Paola the "real" veterinary museum, where she could put her hands on some specimen used in teaching.

Manson Publishing Meeting

Manson Publishing is another of the partners in the OVAM project. They will be contributing a percentage of content from their texts to the museum. Manson's were also involved in the previous JISC funded Opening Access to Veterinary Literature (OVAL) project where flashcards were created using questions from some of their books.

Nick and Bara met with Matt from Mansons to discuss the details of how we will work together for the museum. Some key anatomy texts were identified which have some fantastic images and diagrams in them. These contributions will be a very important addition to the museum and will be recognised in a similar way to the flashcards in the OVAL project with attribution to the contributor and a link to their website for those interested in purchasing the whole text.

The next step in the process is for us to carefully work through the texts and identify the parts we feel will be most valuable as a learning resource for students. This will not be an easy task as we are really spoilt for choice!

Visit to Animals Inside Out

The Natural History Museum has a new exhibition by the well known German anatomists Gunter von Hagen called Animals Inside Out. We went along yesterday to have a look at their examples of plastination and skeletal structures. The exhibition starts out with a number of stunning presentations of octopuses and sharks like the figurehead (not hammer head!) shark below. With special lighting this really is a stunning exhibit - worth visiting if just for this.

Image Link : http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/images/1007/shark-slide_109325_1.jpg   

There are also a range of plastinated domestic species demonstrating structure such as the horses lower foot, cervical vertebra. As vets we were pretty sure that the positioning of the cervical vertebra was rather un natural and there seemed to be evidence of some quite severe spondylosis too. One interesting information panel described the only anatomical difference between a sheep and a goat - have a guess (answers on an email to wikimaster@wikivet.net). The real star piece in this section was the charging bull below - though it looked rather "plastic" to me!

Image Link : http://www.nhm.ac.uk/resources-rx/images/1007/bull-gallery-slide_109426_1.jpg 

Finally, the last room had some of the larger specimens including the giraffe and the famous elephant. These must have taken years to make and were particularly impressive because muscles had been teased apart to demonstrate vascular supplies and innervation. I had hope to see a few more display items (the skeletons were nothing special) and a few of the horse structures that von Hagens is so famous for - but still well worth the visit.

Image authorised for use by http://www.bodyworlds.com