OVERVIEW
OEIS is happy to provide assistance with the creation and production of branching activities/case studies for your course(s). Use the buttons below to explore standard types of these activities and view some examples.
Keep in mind that what you see here is not the limit to what is possible with branching activities or course video. To explore these or additional ideas, you can always email our team at cop-design@osu.edu.
BRANCHING ACTIVITIES
What is a branching activity?
Branching activities function similarly to a “choose-your-own adventure” type of activity. Students are typically presented with a scenario in which they can make different choices that may lead them down different paths to specific end points.
These activities can provide for mock patient encounters, interview simulations, leadership decision-making or lead to student-specific resources/activities (e.g., building a course-plan of study).
Why use these activities?
Branching activities and simulations can provide several benefits to your course and students:
- Increase interactivity/engagement in your course
- Transform passive learning activities into rich, active learning experiences often by putting your students into the “hot seat” of a given scenario
- Reinforce and apply information that students just reviewed from lecture and reading materials.
- Provide self-paced, customized learning
Examples
To see examples of COP case studies, visit our showcase course in Carmen:
INTERACTIVE CASE STUDIES
What is an interactive case study?
Interactive case studies are similar to branching activities but follow a linear and consistent path for all students. Like a branching activity, these activities start with a scenario and run students through an example case – often times directly from or adjacent to a real-world scenario.
These activities might still include some decision-making elements, but they won’t lead students down personalized paths. Instead, all students will interact with and learn from the same key elements of your chosen chase and arrive at the same end point. Additionally, these activities may be “unfolding” in nature and release new information to students as they move along (e.g., additional information is provided about a patient in case study through each stage of the activity).
Why use these activities?
Interactive case studies can provide several benefits to your course and students:
- Increase interactivity/engagement in your course
- Provide real-world examples as supplemental learning material
- Reinforce and apply information that students just reviewed from lecture and reading materials
- Provide self-paced learning
Examples
To see examples of COP case studies, visit our showcase course in Carmen:
HOW CAN WE CREATE THESE ACTIVITIES?
Whether you need to create a branching activity or case study, OEIS can help to produce with two different tools: Carmen and Lectora.
When building a branching activity in Carmen, a page is made for each potential landing spot and those pages are linked together. Those pages can hold any piece of information that a normal Carmen page can hold (through the rich content editor) – text, images, video, etc. The same method can be used for a case study in Carmen.
However, there are limitations when it comes to grading and tracking Carmen-based branching activities and case studies. This is where Lectora comes into play. Lectora is a large-scale, complex authoring tool with many capabilities – most importantly the ability to help us track student interaction and report grades to Carmen.
The bottom line is that branching activities and case studies can both be built in Carmen, but certain activity requirements might push production up to Lectora. View the chart below to distinguish the tools based on potential activity requirements:
| Carmen | H5P | Lectora | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Case studies w/ locked-in choices | X* | X | X |
| Branching activities w/ locked-in choices | X | X | |
| Graded case studies | X** | X | X |
| Graded branching activities | X | X | |
| Non-graded activities | X | X | X |
| Tracked student interactions | X |
*Carmen Quizzes must be used with “Show one question at a time” and “Lock questions after answering” settings selected.
**Carmen Quizzes must be used.
If you would like to create Carmen-based branching activity, you may either build it on your own or email our team at cop-design@osu.edu. If you feel like H5P or Lectora would suit your project better, please email our team at cop-design@osu.edu.