gms | German Medical Science

Objectives/Interrogation: Development of digital media and electronic publishing really advanced in the last decade. But access to knowledge and science is mostly limited by economic and copyright related barriers. Hand surgery is based on very specialized surgical education, research and current discussion. Commercial textbooks and journals are expensive and limited in distribution. Contents have to be revised in short time intervals and cause recent editions. Operative treatment and microsurgical techniques cannot be displayed adequate in printed media.

Methods: The beginning of this millennium is characterized by increasing information and communication technologies which allow the transfer of information through global communication systems.This opens up opportunities to create and share a wider array of educational resources. Social networking and collaborative learning becomes common. Based on these ideas an open access text book was created to spread hand surgical knowledge worldwide. First chapters are finished and include basics, extensive knowledge and technical videos.

Results and Conclusions: In the presentation the concepts and guidelines for OER, Open Access publishing and the use of Creative Common licences are explained. Using the concept for the Open Access Textbook the advantages and possibilities of OER are explained. Everybody with the possibility of internet use will have access to the complete actualized textbook.

The license allows all material as text,tables,figures and videos to be used by everybody with slight restriction. Learning, teaching and developing of surgical techniques becomes easier and more established.