We take an iterative or evolutionary view of our web site: because our needs will change over time, new modules and services must be added to the site. This will provide more and better choices to visitors to the site, and more answers to their spatial analysis needs. We anticipate increasing quality in each module with time - as we teach from a module, or as we get feedback from other users, we will incorporate the changes in our site. We hope that friends of the site will also provide additional modules.
Module development is thus continuous: we are in the process of improving modules by adding on-line quizzes, which permit students to test themselves on their assimilation of the material. Modules are being redesigned to allow the student to dig progressively deeper into the concepts, with a range of treatment from the superficial to the profound. Furthermore, in addition to improving old modules, we are developing new modules, giving teachers a wider choice of materials to include in their own courses. More student-inspired modules will be created (based on their needs), as we continue to expand the range of projects attempted, and analyses indicated. This will go hand-in-hand with an expansion of the range of presentations on the web, which will provide grist for the mills of students seeking to explore and analyze their own data in new and spatial/temporal ways.
As an example of a new module developing in response to formerly unmet needs, we are creating a module concerning Hierarchical spatial models; it is being developed with GeoMed Consultant Dr. Dan Griffith, of Syracuse University. As an example of a new service, we are developing an on-line math tutor - an on-line resource to mathematics that epidemiologists and public health professionals find essential. One of the most serious skills lacking in our pool of students was mathematical sophistication, and we seek to address that need.
In the meantime, we approach the next year with a complete course in hand, one which will evolve with us as we increase our own knowledge and as we seek to ``...provide students with the knowledge, theory, and methodological skills for analyzing and interpreting the spatial patterns of various diseases in order to elucidate underlying exposure processes giving rise to the observed patterns.'' In this late stage of our grant we hope to begin increasing our distribution of the materials and the site. It is our great hope that many others will find our site worthy of a visit, and perhaps even an extended stay, as the richness of the site continues to grow.