Kay Hack - Development of a Stem Cell Technology Animation:

Development of a Stem Cell Technology Animation: A collaborative project between the School of Biomedical

Science and the School of Creative Arts

Kay Hack, Diane Lees-Murdock, Connan Fitzpatrick, Justin Magee

Project Overview

• The aim of this project was to harness the power of modern multimedia to develop a dynamic animation of stem cell technology.

• Stem cell technology was chosen as the demonstration topic for this project as it is both an important area of biomedical research as well as being a topic of current importance to the wider community.

Objectives

• To introduce students to publicly available high quality dynamic visualisations of life science concepts.

• To develop a professional quality dynamic visualisation to depict stem cell technology.

• To provide students with experience of inter-disciplinary collaboration.

• To initiate cross-faculty collaboration and provide the foundation for further developments, such as grant applications, in this exciting new area of visualising biological processes and systems.

• To provide a high quality, visually attractive resource which can be used in education, promotion and outreach activities.

Step 1

•Students from the School of Creative Arts visited the laboratories in the Centre for Molecular Bioscience at Coleraine.

Step 2

•The animations were created as part of a Masters module in Computing and Creative Technologies, School of Creative Arts.

Step 3

•The final animations were returned to Coleraine for evaluation by PhD students from the School of Biomedical Science.

Animations

Students used text and voice-overs to explain the scientific concepts presented in the 3-D visualisations.

Animation in Second Life

One student used Second Life to produce an animation focussed on patient education. The animation highlighted the steps taken during an autologous stem cell transplant and included links to stem cell resources.

Evaluation: The animations were ranked on a scale of 1 - 5 by science students

Excellent

Poor

“A very marketable idea with lots of potential”

“Showed good knowledge of subject and has the ability to deliver information in a way which is easy to understand”

“Impressive visuals,

informative & clear”

“A nice approach to

convey patient

information”

“some of the visuals

require more detail”

”text should be on screen for longer”

“Voice over should be slower”

Science students evaluate the resulting animations

Conclusions and Recommendations

• Inter-faculty collaboration was valued by staff and students• Both cohorts enjoyed the collaboration and felt that they

benefited from the interaction.• Collaboration across two campuses was difficult

Use social networking tools to improve communication between students

• Map project outcomes closely to module learning outcomesScience students provided excellent evaluation of animations;

unfortunately this was received too late for the students to modify their final presentations

Future Work

• This project has provided the starting point for further inter-faculty collaboration, and laid the foundation for further developments in this exciting new area of visualising biological processes and systems.

Future Work

• Elements of the animations (e.g. stem cells, blood cells and arteries) will form the basis of longer video clips, which can be: • combined with audience specific narratives and

used as a focus for discussion in a number of areas including science, nursing, and education

• delivered via the VLE to communicate difficult concepts to students both on and off campus

Future Work

•The project has provided pilot data and proof of concept for a grant submission to external funding bodies.

CONTACT DETAILS

School of Biomedical Science Kay Hack cj.hack@ulster.ac.ukDiane Lees-Murdock dj.lees@ulster.ac.ukSchool of Creative ArtsJustin Magee dm.magee@ulster.ac.uk