MOOC for Medical Big Data Research: An Important Role in Hypertension Big Data Research

Abstract

Due to limited technical and social resources, many physician practices fall short on accurate blood pressure measurement to carry out large-scale hypertension research projects. The accuracy and standard of data acquisition are very important when data sources are diverse in medical big data research. This paper proposes Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) is appropriate approach to teach volunteers necessary knowledge and skills of blood pressure measurement for hypertension research. It introduces a new citizen science "paradigm" to support big data research such as hypertension. MOOC is a new type online course that provides a combination of short video lectures, frequent comprehension quizzes and active participation in discussion forum. The well-trained data collectors by MOOC will be granted to collect and publish data of hypertension research. The process of medical big data research based on MOOC was introduced.