Capabilities

The Institute has a professional and highly experienced team of educators and designers who have developed and delivered training for international audiences. This includes:

• Development of multimedia and multilingual educational resources for a range of audiences, including practitioners, educators, professionals, and industry representatives
• Resources developed include interactive CD Roms, manuals, videos, posters, websites
• Languages include English, Mandarin, Indonesian, Korean, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese
• Delivery of training programmes by IER expert educators to a range of audiences
• Training of local educators to enhance knowledge and skills and enable ongoing education
• Development of material to be included in undergraduate curricula

Activities

Educational activities of the Institute are designed to promote better vision care and technology transfer. 

Developing the Gas Permeable Lens Business
A market development programme conducted in collaboration with Polymer Technology, a Bausch and Lomb company, helped to develop the gas permeable business through a focused campaign of practical initiatives. 

The programme was divided into three main areas:

• Curriculum development and teaching material production for worldwide markets (royalties are received by the Institute from distribution of such material).
• Establishment of priority markets and contact with relevant manufacturers/distributors of gas permeable products especially in Asia.
• Conduct of gas permeable practitioner training programmes in Asia by the Institute in conjunction with local industry.

Initially, lectures, videotapes and handouts were developed and produced in simplified Mandarin, Indonesian, Korean and English languages.  Work was completed on the development of an interactive CD-Rom series on gas permeable fitting and management.  This involved the production of a three volume interactive self-learning CD Rom series on gas permeable fitting and management that has been distributed worldwide.  Languages completed to date are English, Simple and Complex Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Korean and a customised version for the American market.

An educational interactive DVD Rom programme on orthokeratology has also been developed to provide practitioners with technical details about the fitting and management of this vision correction technique. This programme has been produced in English, Simple and Complex Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, French, German and a customised version for the American market.  An education package was then developed as part of an initiative to provide practitioners with continuing education on orthokeratology.  This package included the DVD programme, a printed handout, an interactive self-assessment programme (CD and web based) and a didactic lecture presentation.  This work was complemented by a clinical trial on orthokeratology where experience was obtained with four different lens designs.  This experience has proved invaluable in the development of the educational DVD programme.

Since the beginning of the collaboration, educational programmes have been successfully conducted for practitioners in Singapore, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines. 

Silicone Hydrogels Website
An educational website for eye care professionals to provide the latest information on silicone hydrogel contact lens research and practice has been developed by the Institute for Eye Research and the Centre for Contact Lens Research at the University of Waterloo, Canada.  The site (www.siliconehydrogels.org) is an important resource for practitioners and it has been received enthusiastically worldwide, with a high rate of hits and clinical questions to the editors.  The site includes a monthly editorial, practitioner case studies, article reviews, a glossary of terms, conference updates, a question and answer section which allows the user to submit questions to a panel of experts, as well as current publications which have resulted from research conducted by the Vision Cooperative Research Centre, the University of Waterloo; and other organisations.