Further User Comments Regarding Usage of an Interactive Educational Diabetes Simulator (AIDA)

2001

Self Cite

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Use of the AIDA Diabetes Simulation Software— www.2aida.org—as an Interactive Educational Tool for Teaching Student Nurses

Tatti¹,

2001

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“…While a large number of downloads of the AIDA software have been logged on the Internet, up to now, apart from user testimonials about the program 7,21,22 -and ad hoc comments received by the system developers via e-mail [23][24][25] -there has been little formal assessment as to who has actually been downloading or making use of the simulator, or more importantly, why.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Are People Downloading the Freeware AIDA Diabetes Computing Software Program: A Pilot Study

2002

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The purpose of this paper is to report a pilot survey about why people are downloading the AIDA interactive educational diabetes simulator. AIDA is a diabetes computer program that permits the interactive simulation of plasma insulin and blood glucose profiles for teaching, demonstration, and self-learning purposes. It has been made freely available, without charge, on the Internet as a noncommercial contribution to continuing diabetes education. Since its launch in 1996 well over 200,000 visits have been logged at the main AIDA Websitewww.2aida.org-and over 40,000 copies of the AIDA program have been downloaded freeof-charge. This article documents a pilot survey of comments left by Website visitors while they were downloading the AIDA software, before they had a chance to actually use the program. The overall paradigm adopted for this study has endeavored to establish why people are resorting to the Internet to obtain diabetes information. Specific intended goals of the study were: (1) to demonstrate ongoing use of the World Wide Web for surveying diabetes software users by obtaining their free-text comments; (2) to identify what sort of things people were planning to do with the AIDA software simulator; and (3) to more generally gain some insight into why people are turning to the Web for healthcare-related information. The Internet-based survey methodology was found to be robust and reliable. Over an 8-month period (from February 2, 2001 to October 1, 2001) 642 responses were received. During the corresponding period 2,248 actual visits were made to the Website survey page-giving a response rate to this pilot study of 28.6%. Responses were received from participants in over 56 countries-although over half of these (n 5 343; 53.4%) originated from the United States and United Kingdom. Two hundred forty-four responses (38.0%) were received from patients with diabetes, and 73 (11.4%) from relatives of patients, with fewer responses from doctors, students, diabetes educators, nurses, pharmacists, and other end users. This pilot survey has confirmed the feasibility of using the Internet to obtain free-text comments, at no real cost, from a large number of medical software downloaders/users. The survey has also offered a valuable insight into why members of the public are turning to the Internet for medical information. Furthermore it has provided useful information about why people are actually downloading the AIDA interactive educational "virtual diabetes patient" simulator. 793

“…While a large number of downloads of the software have been logged at the AIDA Website, up to now, apart from user testimonials about the program 4,27,28 and ad hoc comments received by the system developers via email, [29][30][31][32] there has been little formal assessment as to who has actually been downloading or making use of the simulator.…”

Section: Rationale For the Auditmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Is Downloading the Freeware AIDA v4.3 Interactive Educational Diabetes Simulator? An Audit of 2,437 Downloads

2002

Self Cite

The purpose of this paper is to report an audit of 2,437 downloads of the AIDA interactive educational diabetes simulator. AIDA is a diabetes computer program that permits the interactive simulation of plasma insulin and blood glucose profiles for educational, demonstration, and self-learning purposes. It has been made freely available, without charge, on the Internet as a noncommercial contribution to continuing diabetes education. Since its launch in 1996 over 200,000 visits have been logged at the AIDA Website-www.2aida.org-and over 37,000 copies of the AIDA program have been downloaded free-of-charge. This report documents an audit of downloaders of the software, with the intended goals of the study being to demonstrate the use of the Internet for auditing and surveying diabetes software users and to confirm the proportion of patients with diabetes and their relatives who are actually making use of the AIDA v4.3 program. The Internet-based survey methodology was confirmed to be robust and reliable. Over a 7 1 / 2 -month period (from mid-July 2000 to early March 2001) 2,437 responses were received. During the corresponding period 4,100 actual downloads of the software were independently logged via the same route at the AIDA Website-giving a response rate to this audit of 59.4%. Responses were received from participants in 61 countries-although over half of these (n 5 1,533; 62.9%) originated from the United States and United Kingdom. Of these responses 1,361 (55.8%) were received from patients with diabetes and 303 (12.4%) from relatives of patients, with fewer responses from doctors, diabetes educators, students, nurses, pharmacists, and other end users. This study has confirmed the feasibility of using the Internet to survey, at no real cost, a large number of medical software downloaders/users. In addition, it has yielded up-to-date and interesting data about who are the main downloaders of the AIDA program. 467