Digital publishing
Curriculum background
The team

Digital publications manager
ariane.smith@wsu.edu

Web and digital publishing coordinator
heather.jansen@wsu.edu
Outside the Office of Curriculum, we work closely with members of the Office of Technology and the department of Academic Operations.
Digital Publishing projects
Our work is seen daily by students in all four years of the curriculum, starting on day 1 of class—with Case-Based Learning, Molecular Biology, and Gross Anatomy—and going through Year 4 courses like Global Health and Virtual Neurology.
We have created and maintain 850+ pages on the Medicine Digital Learning site and 70+ CBL patients yearly. On the Learning site, we had over 33,000 page views in term 1 of academic year 2024–25 alone—our students are looking at these materials!
Case-Based Learning (CBL)

70+ patients per year
- See the Case-Based Learning (CBL) Student Guide for more information.
- Please get in touch if you’d like to see a sample case.
Case-Based Learning (CBL) is a student-led, faculty-facilitated, small-group learning environment where students explore clinical cases that cover common (or must know) conditions and progressively increase in complexity across the pre-clerkship. Students apply concepts learned in large-group sessions, integrate clinical and foundational science knowledge, develop clinical reasoning skills, and consider contextual factors (e.g., health care disparities, health systems, and ethics) that impact patient care and outcomes. In this integrative component, students apply leadership skills and evidence-based-medicine research skills, being taught in other parts of the program, as they teach each other what they learn during self-directed learning (between CBL sessions). Facilitators provide regular assessments as they observe student development in the core competencies of the program.
CBL cases are delivered as ebooks to the students’ iPads. Digital Publishing creates these complex, highly interactive cases that are written by faculty and edited by the pre-clerkship director. Facilitators are given versions with extensive background information and answers to the student questions that are integrated into the case.
Here’s more information about the process: Case-Based Learning (CBL) workflow: 2024.
CBL cases go out to the students four times per week:
-
- Friday afternoon: Case Preview
- Monday: Session 1
- Wednesday: Session 1+2
- Friday: Session 1+2+3
Academic Half-Day cases in year 3 are also delivered as ebooks, providing nice continuity for the Year 3 students.
Medicine Digital Learning site

learning.medicine.wsu.edu
850+ pages | 31 components of the curriculum
The Medicine Digital Learning site was created to serve as a consistent location for students to access online textbooks and materials created by our faculty. The goal is to reduce cognitive load for the students, giving them a single place where they can find the materials that faculty have created for them.
We have a broad range materials, ranging from digital textbooks to weekly session guides to collections of links. The key is that they all have a cohesive format and function.
The Learning site is completely separate from the learning-management system, E.Flo MD.
We are available to all faculty who create their own learning materials. The first step is taking inventory of the projecting and working out the architecture of the project. Each one is different, but certain elements can be treated consistently enough across the Learning site that it still feels cohesive.
We do all of the production work, consulting with faculty, and coordinate with staff to have links distributed so students.
We use the broad view of all of our digital materials to interweave them where applicable—for instance, in CBL cases, we link to parts of the Gross Anatomy textbook so that students can easily review the pertinent information (or get an opportunity to read it for the first time!). Putting the information in front of the students more than once reinforces its relevancy and helps make connections for the learner.
This serial was created as an opportunity for the Instructional Design and Digital Publishing team to talk about how and why we do our work. As a professional development tool, it gives us a chance to establish ourselves as experts and communicate with potential new collaborators who we haven’t met yet but who are interested in partnering.
Posts include updates on our new projects, as well as all matter of topics: instructional design, digital publishing, learner experience, editing, design, fonts, new projects, learning theory, and more.
Other projects
tech.medicine.wsu.edu
200+ pages | 150+ blog posts
We built and currently manage the site, which includes creating new pages and updating existing pages. This is important due to the College’s all-digital curriculum—giving the students the ability to learn how to use our tools is the first step in them being able to use them effectively.
Under state and a new federal law signed in 2024, WSU must ensure that digital materials are accessible and provide an inclusive experience. The federal ADA compliance deadline is April 24, 2026.
Digital Publishing is participating in the new Digital Accessibility ambassador group for the College. The goal of the group is to educate and train faculty and staff on Digital Accessibility. With 1,000+ web pages and 70+ digital CBL cases, we are working hard to be certain that our materials meet this standard.