You have to integrate them with text, put them in the right spot and make them mean something. Otherwise, you're getting a pop when you can make an atomic bomb. A Big Bang for Education Talk about a KM explosion at Tufts. Although there is little quantitative evidence so far that the system is directly improving students' comprehension or increasing exam scores, anecdotal evidence abounds that the project is creating value. Lee says students Mary Y. Lee, dean of educational affairs, saw the need to connect the database to the curriculum.
Faculty say that lectures have become more interactive.
The system also seems to be transforming traditional, didactic medical education at Tufts into a model of self-directed study more common in other graduate school programs. For example, medical students studying salmonella in humans can link to veterinary school material to learn about the source of the bacteria, its effect on chickens and cattle, ways it is transmitted to humans, prevention and treatment. More than 100,000 connections between courses and atoms of content within the system help students understand. The beauty of the database is its flexibility, says Lee. The model allows you to take chunks of information, manipulate it, reuse it and put it together in a way that suits your own unique needs.