Latest News › The British Dental Association (BDA): E-learning for dentists

The BDA represents over 23,000 dentists working in a wide range of settings. As the regulator for the sector, the General Dental Council (GDC) sets requirements for CPD. One of the ways the BDA helps its members to complete the required CPD is by providing e-learning. The BDA first introduced E-learning in 2006.

E-learning resources are mainly intended for the benefit of practising BDA members, as students are often well provided for in terms of e-learning while studying at universities. There are direct
e-learning services that members can participate in and get professional development hours for doing so. The BDA also provides e-learning for non-members and non-dentists who work in related roles within dental practices: dental nurses, hygienists, and receptionists, which has a benefit for its members as well.

For the BDA, the move towards e-learning came as a natural part of developing modern qualifications for dental care professionals. Initially a limited amount of e-learning was created as an ‘experiment’ and after it was judged successful it was included in more and more areas of the organisation’s work. One advantage of by providing courses via e-learning was gaining more control over the delivery of learning – rather than providing learning through approved learning providers it allowed a direct relationship with the learners.

 “We went for Adobe Connect as an off the shelf solution based on Flash. I was looking for a solution where we didn’t have to worry about the IT, where we could concentrate on developing the content and management systems.”

One advantage of using an ‘off the shelf’ product such as Adobe Connect was the support provided. Being backed by a major technology firm meant the product would be well tested and would continue to be improved as aspects were debugged and updated.  The difficulty in using a generic platform (as opposed to a bespoke one) is that it requires the organisation to be flexible about the implementation. There will always be limits to the functionality of a system that is not customised to your exact specification.

The BDA’s Education Services Team are the focal point for producing e-learning content based on expertise which comes from a variety of places within the organisation. There are also external experts who may be commissioned to write a particular piece of learning.

We asked our interviewee what advice they would give to another professional body that was looking at starting or expanding an e-learning system. One important point that came up was that e-learning shouldn’t just be seen as something separate from the rest of the organisation:

“More important would be to work hard to integrate e-learning into other services the association provides. I think we are nearly there as we use e-learning to support our advice, our publications, and our face to face events as well. I would have brought that into the mix much much sooner.”

This Member Spotlight is a summarised version of one of the case studies for PARN’s current research project ‘E-learning for Professionals’, which was developed with and approved by the interviewee.

Posted on 10 Jul 2012