The main objective of the optional 1 st year module F31AB1 Medical Physics is to provide an introduction for the students to the use of physics-based techniques in medical research and diagnostics. The difficulty encountered in designing the best teaching approach for this interdisciplinary module is an insufficient background knowledge in both physics and in human physiology of the 1 st year students. Hence, it is important to provide easy access to information in both disciplines to enable revision of the subject covered within the lectures. To this end, a comprehensive online book with about 80 pages was designed and implemented, which covered all relevant material of the course 1. The acceptance of this online resource was monitored by two approaches: (i) Student access was monitored by a software package which made is possible to analyse the access rate to each page and the time spent viewing them. (ii) A questionnaire was handed out at the end of the course to obtain the students’ own perception of this kind of learning resource.

The analysis of the web access statistics showed that on average main web pages were accessed once a week by each student. Analysis of the questionnaire showed a very positive acceptance of the online book. Interestingly, more than 60% of the students thought that reading an online book is equivalent to a book with additional 20% actually preferring online material to books because of easier navigation and interactivity. This positive result is probably also based on the fact that all students found it easy to have access to a computer (76% use their own computer) and did not experience any technical problems.

Students estimated that they spent on average about 1 hour per week for the revision of the material. An evaluation of the web access rates showed that this time was largely used to screen though the pages the last two days before answers to course work questions were due be handed in. This result underpins clearly the importance of the course work to provide an additional motivation for the students to revise the lecture material but also raises questions on the ability of 1 st year student for an efficient time management.

Students were critical about the idea to rely in their learning process only on e-learning material. 19% could imagine using only a web-based course without any lectures while 81% objected this idea. This finding queries whether web-based e-learning material could act as the only source of information in teaching similar modules.

Students considered the web-based material as an option to revise and confirm their understanding of ideas and concepts, which were already explained in the lectures. This process was facilitated by e-learning material, which was specifically designed to enhance the understanding of complicated concepts through the use of animations and graphical illustrations.

The positive response to this project leads to the conclusion that carefully designed e-learning material can provide the students with tailored information to maximise their understanding of the course content of the medical physics module.