Creating an online interactive tool to help veterinary students select optional classes based on their career goals

Abstract

The Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) program is a 4-year long curriculum, which offers numerous elective courses in addition to the mandatory course load. Faculty realized that the optional courses covering food animal health and production were unknown of the students. To help reduce this discrepancy, a roadmap was created for the students to visualize what additional classes they could take to prepare for a career in food animal practice. The constraints of the roadmap were that it needed to be easily updated, accessible by students on their own schedule, interactive, self-paced, and accessible to students with disabilities.

We will discuss the steps that lead to design of the Food Animal Career roadmap and you will be guided through the creation of the online interactive tool using Adobe Captivate.

Take home messages:
- Professional programs can be confusing for students. A tool summarizing the classes’ portfolio can help them choose.
- Students’ feedback to the online career roadmap was overwhelmingly positive.
- Creating this tool started the discussion among faculty of content continuity between semesters and avoiding unnecessary repetitions.