=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2193/paper3
|storemode=property
|title=OpenWHO: Integrating Online Knowledge Transfer into Health Emergency Response
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2193/paper3.pdf
|volume=Vol-2193
|authors=Tobias Rohloff, Heini Utunen, Jan Renz, Yu Zhao, Gaya Gamhewage, Christoph Meinel
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ectel/RohloffURZGM18
}}
==OpenWHO: Integrating Online Knowledge Transfer into Health Emergency Response==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2193/paper3.pdf
OpenWHO: Integrating Online Knowledge Transfer
into Health Emergency Response
Tobias Rohloff 1, Heini Utunen2, Jan Renz1, Yu Zhao2, Gaya Gamhewage2,
and Christoph Meinel1
1 Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam, Germany
{tobias.rohloff,jan.renz,christoph.meinel}@hpi.de
2 Infectious Hazard Management, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
outbreak.training@who.int
Abstract. The platform OpenWHO was developed in 2017 in a cooperation be-
tween the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Hasso Plattner Institute
(HPI). The Department of Infectious Hazard Management, under the WHO
Health Emergencies Programme, worked together with the HPI to create a new
interactive, web-based, knowledge-transfer platform offering online courses to
improve the response to health emergencies. The platform was newly launched
as there was an identified need of an open and scalable solution for fast distribu-
tion of life-saving content in disease outbreaks for frontline responders. The plat-
form provides adjusted versions of the massive open online learning resources
that are self-paced and at ease formats for the frontline and low-bandwidth use.
The HPI already developed know-how in previous Massive Open Online Course
(MOOC) projects like openHPI and openSAP. OpenWHO is based on the same
technology as the aforementioned projects. This paper will provide insights into
the practical deployment, the adaption of the MOOC concept, and lessons learnt
within the first year of this platform.
Keywords: Health Emergencies, Disease Outbreaks, Epidemics, Frontline Re-
sponders, Health Emergency Training, Online Learning, MOOCs
1 Introduction
The nature of hazards and the contexts in which they occur is evolving rapidly in the
21st century. Associated factors include increases in global travel and trade, intense ur-
banization and persistent poverty in many parts of the world, climate-change-associated
natural disasters, unprecedented numbers of migrants and refugees, disparities in access
to health services as well as the proliferation of emergency response actors and agen-
cies. No single government, agency or team can manage today’s complex epidemics
and health emergencies on their own. Emergency response is carried out by local, na-
tional and international responders, each of whom has a different background, educa-
tion and level of knowledge. Recent epidemics have highlighted the need to make
quickly available key technical and operational information to thousands of frontline
2 T. Rohloff, H. Utunen, J. Renz, Y. Zhao, G. Gamhewage, and C. Meinel
responders. This rapid and complex knowledge transfer requires a modern, agile and
easy-to access platform, well beyond the capacity of conventional websites.
OpenWHO1 aims to address this need: it transfers the latest and most relevant scien-
tific, technical, and operational knowledge to frontline responders via online courses
and knowledge resources for responders. OpenWHO is the World Health Organiza-
tion’s (WHO) first platform to integrate open online learning concepts into emergency
response. Successfully launched publicly in June 2017, it now caters to more than
30,000 individual users, targeting frontline health workers. Learning materials are used
not only by WHO staff in the field, but also by Member States personnel, such as Min-
istry of Health officials, other UN and partner organizations, as well as international
and national non-governmental organizations. All materials are also educational for the
general public, students, travelers and others. The platform is open access and free for
all users, with more than 40,000 course registrations from all over the world in the first
9 months since it was launched.
Functioning as WHO’s learning platform for emergencies, OpenWHO aims to equip
all frontline responders with the knowledge they need to better contain disease out-
breaks and manage health emergencies. The flexible and high-capacity online learning
platform can provide preliminary training, briefings and knowledge transfer as part of
a readiness system for emergency response. Response teams working amid these vari-
ables need reliable, up-to-date information on known pathogens and hazards as well as
real-time access to briefings about new events, new emergencies, and newly emerging
pathogens. Short online courses on 40 topics are available at OpenWHO for practition-
ers, response teams, volunteers and decision-makers at the frontlines of health emer-
gency and outbreak response. This is made possible by using low-bandwidth technolo-
gies and accompanying iOS and Android apps so that life-saving knowledge can be
accessed even in the remotest parts of the world. The platform also allows to download
different learning elements (video, audio, transcripts) and use them offline.
This article presents one of OpenWHO’s experimental practices: training frontline
workers for health emergency response prior to deployment with outbreak response
related knowledge resources. The essential knowledge and technical guidance related
to disease containment is compiled into an easy-to-use online course format, consisting
of video, audio and critical source documents. Materials include also some resources in
local languages.
1.1 Channels of Information
The WHO uses, amongst others, a website, several apps and social media channels.
Following, the listed examples will be described in detail:
─ WHO Website The WHO website is available in six languages (English, Spanish,
French, Russian, Arabic and Mandarin). It contains a large amount of information in
form of publications, program overviews, news, reports and facts. Even though it is
a great collection of data, it is easy to get sidetracked or lost as the sheer amount of
1
https://openwho.org/
OpenWHO: Online Knowledge Transfer for Emergency Response 3
content can be overwhelming. The website is not built to host a large number of
visitors simultaneously like it would be the case in a global medical emergency.
─ WHO Info App The Info App provides access to the latest health information. It
contains articles and news about the WHO as well as news about diseases and out-
breaks. Articles and reports link back to the WHO website.
─ WHO Social Media There are several social media appearances of the WHO, like
Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Some share general information about the WHO,
some about topics concerning a specific region.
─ WHO Zika App The Zika App contains the latest information focusing on the Zika
virus. It is a lot easier to navigate as it only covers one topic and has a main target
audience of health care workers.
─ WHO YouTube Channel Educational video footage as well as documentations of
e.g. health assemblies are published here.
─ WHO Newsletter Corporate newsletter providing weekly updates to voluntary sub-
scribers across the globe. The newsletter is targeted to general public but is available
to anyone wishing to receive up-to-date information on WHO’s activities.
The above examples are all applications that serve the purpose of distributing
knowledge but have different target audiences. As someone looking for specific infor-
mation it can be difficult to find the right place to look it up. The OpenWHO team also
strives to find suitable ways to reach the right audiences for the platform materials.
1.2 Problem Statement
Based on one year of OpenWHO experience some gaps and issues have been identified.
People who are or may become a frontline responder do not necessarily access the ma-
terials provided in the organization’s internal channels only. Also searching from inter-
net pages can be challenging. The OpenWHO platform was established to enable fast
distribution of critical resources in health emergencies and infectious disease outbreaks
to a wider audience, including external users. Materials need to be in well-packaged
and at-ease-formats for the frontline responders. It has been recognized that in the out-
break response in most vulnerable settings the learning material management and dis-
tribution need to correlate with the infrastructures: there is a lack of internet network
capacity to load large data size packages. Therefore, the OpenWHO platform and ma-
terial structure needs to adapt to very varying bandwidth scenarios.
2 Digital Solution
After identifying the presented needs and requirements, WHO’s Health Emergencies
Programme teamed up with the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) from Potsdam, Germany
to provide a modern e-learning solution that scales globally. Therefore, HPI’s digital
learning platform was adapted, to transform the concept of Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs) into online knowledge transfer for health emergency response. The
underlying concepts are introduced in the following sections, which paved the way for
the new OpenWHO platform.
4 T. Rohloff, H. Utunen, J. Renz, Y. Zhao, G. Gamhewage, and C. Meinel
2.1 The MOOC Platform of Hasso Plattner Institute
The Hasso Plattner Institute started its efforts in 2012 as the first European MOOC
provider [1]. Based on its whitelabel software, multiple MOOC platforms were estab-
lished, like openHPI, openSAP and mooc.house. Since 2012 the non-profit openHPI2
project is developed and maintained by the HPI in Potsdam, Germany. Up today almost
500,000 enrollments are taken in courses with topics mostly derived from the HPI cur-
riculum. Because not all companies or institutions can afford to host an own infrastruc-
ture for MOOCs, or their course output is too small for an own platform, the HPI offers
the mooc.house platform for external partners. In 2013 the German-based software
company SAP launched their openSAP platform for enterprise MOOCs. The primary
objective is to enlarge the SAP ecosystem, by offering education and trainings for their
employees and external people about their products [2]. The openSAP platform is one
of the first enterprise-based MOOC platforms with currently over 2,800,000 course en-
rollments. It is based on the same software as openHPI.
Next to the responsive web client, all platforms can be accessed with native mobile
apps for iOS and Android. These apps follow an offline-first first approach, to better
enable learning in no- or low-internet scenarios after syncing the data. Being an aca-
demic institution, the HPI has a strong research interest regarding MOOCs and its plat-
form. Current research questions focus at the topics learning analytics, team peer as-
sessments, social coding, gamification, game-based learning, mobile and offline learn-
ing. Additionally, the openHPI platform uses HPI’s tele-TASK3 system for recording
lectures, which offers dual stream processing as a handy mobile system.
2.2 The Concept of OpenWHO
OpenWHO aims to meet the evolving needs of frontline responders in the 21 st century.
Therefore, OpenWHO has adapted and customized the MOOC model based on HPI’s
digital learning platform in which users can easily access knowledge-transfer materials
from anywhere in the world, including hard-to-reach remote areas. Currently, the plat-
form has four thematic channels:
─ The Outbreak channel provides trainings on epidemiological knowledge and health
interventions on infectious diseases like Ebola virus disease, yellow fever or cholera
─ The Ready for Response channel focuses on trainings required for humanitarian
and health emergency responses and includes materials such as introduction to the
WHO incident management system
─ The Get Social channel hosts courses for practitioners in topics related to social sci-
ence, risk communication and communication essentials
─ The Preparing for Pandemics channel brings together courses on various aspects
of preparedness, including surveillance, public health measures and public health
interventions during a pandemic
2 https://open.hpi.de/
3
https://tele-task.de/about/
OpenWHO: Online Knowledge Transfer for Emergency Response 5
The platform currently runs self-paced courses. There is no standard length or type
of learning resource given the varying need and use of the materials. Most of the mate-
rials last 1-3 hours and are short learning resources. The OpenWHO production team
can also regularly update courses with the latest disease-specific information through
the technical guidance of WHO experts.
Self-assessments in the form of multiple-choice quiz questions also enable users to
test their knowledge. Pre-tests gage what users already know before the lecture and
post-tests check what they have learned. For both, users immediately get feedback on
their responses after submitting. This platform function can also be used for surveys
and questionnaires in instances when the course is used as an online pre-requisite to in-
person trainings. The course document center provides access to complete series of
presentation slides as well as other WHO guidance materials and knowledge packs.
Discussion forums enable users to interact with each other, asking questions and shar-
ing their experience in the field.
OpenWHO also provides a mobile studio based on the tele-TASK recording system,
which enables direct downloads from the audio-visual recording system to the platform.
This reduces significantly and can abolish completely the need for outsourced content
production and dependency on external content producers. The OpenWHO platform
and production tools allow the building of interactive courses in-house. This leads to
fast content production and the ability to revise any content at any time. The workflow
is based on open standards, including small content packages that can be easily pro-
duced without a vendor locking. The platform ensures the ownership of content, a fast
content production and distribution workflow, a scalable infrastructure and it has a re-
liable worldwide distribution for critical resources via the use of content delivery net-
works.
3 Practical Deployment
The following section will present insights into the technical architecture of the plat-
form and adaptations which were implemented for the deployment of OpenWHO. Also,
the process of how existing and new knowledge resources are produced and migrated
into the platform is explained.
3.1 Technical Architecture
The architecture of OpenWHO is based on independent microservices. Each of them
provides its own domain-specific functionality (Figure 1). Several instances of each
microservice can be deployed in parallel, making this architecture highly scalable to fit
even a large number of users at the same time. The services representing the backend
are mostly written in Ruby on Rails – a framework based on the Model View Controller
(MVC) principle to separate logic and user-view. All services apart from the Web Ser-
vice have roughly the same structure: each has its own database to store and organize
data. There is no global database accessible by several microservices. Furthermore,
each service provides an Application Programming Interface (API) in order to offer
6 T. Rohloff, H. Utunen, J. Renz, Y. Zhao, G. Gamhewage, and C. Meinel
other services their functionality and data. A message queue is available for asynchro-
nous inter-service communication. Additionally, there is a public API that is utilized
by the mobile applications and web client.
Fig. 1. The Platform’s Service-Oriented Architecture
3.2 Platform Adaption
While the purpose of OpenWHO fits great into the world of scalable and cloud-based
e-learning, its approach does not overlap completely with the traditional MOOC ap-
proach. Nevertheless, the platform can be adapted to those circumstance and can suit
different needs. MOOCs often feature a fixed start and end date, and within this dura-
tion a synchronized publishing of new content. This leads to a mixture of flexibility
(consume the content in small chunks whenever and wherever you want) and structure
(fixed deadlines). Furthermore, this leads to social cohorts of learners, who are learning
based on the same learning material and therefore can form a social learning community
within the forums and the collaboration spaces.
OpenWHO follows a different self-directed learning approach, where all courses are
available in a course repository and can be accessed based on the learner’s needs. All
courses can be accessed through the responsive website or by using the native mobile
apps available for Apple and Android devices. While native apps lead to more visibility
for users looking for content and solutions within the app stores, they also allow a better
support of content consumption in low- or no-internet scenarios. Concerning language
barriers, videos can have subtitles to enable access without language barriers. Transla-
tions are currently provided manually. In the future, this could be done through auto-
mated translations (Section 5).
Also, a new functionality to automatically extract audio files out of the video files
was introduced. As audio files only use a fraction of data of video files this allows users
with fragile internet access to consume the content. The tele-TASK video player which
comes with the platform allows to watch one or two parallel video streams. OpenWHO
OpenWHO: Online Knowledge Transfer for Emergency Response 7
also uses the portable tele-TASK production system. In many courses the lecturer is
shown in one stream and his presentation on another synchronized stream. The users
can arrange the size of the two videos as they like. The video post-production workflow
also offers automatic slide detection in the presentation videos – enabling a visual video
navigation for the learner. Furthermore, the playback rate can be reduced or accelerated
by the learner if necessary.
Live Briefings. New video material and updated content can be published within a few
hours, and updated text and documents can be published on the fly. But sometimes it
might be needed to have complex information presented on the fly as well. The WHO
had some successful live streams on external providers like Facebook, which can lead
to possible legal and data privacy issues. Therefore, live streaming has been imple-
mented as new core functionality of OpenWHO. Tests with Microsoft's Azure Media
Services and with Vimeo Live have been conducted. Vimeo proved to offer a simpler
usability, a much more affordable pricing model and a deeper platform integration.
Document Management. Another new core functionality that was introduced as part
of a student project co-innovation process. The document management center is a cen-
tralized repository of file-based documents like knowledge packs containing technical
guidance documents and other resources. This content can then be maintained and up-
dated, while the referenced documents within the courses are automatically updated as
well. The system also allows localized documents, so users can choose which language
to access. The binary files are hosted and delivered through the OpenWHO system,
thereby external dependencies are avoided.
3.3 Identifying and Compiling Knowledge Resources
One of OpenWHO’s experimental practices is the training of frontline workers for
health emergency response prior to deployment with emergency knowledge resources.
A set of emergency knowledge resources has the following features:
1. It usually consists of an expert video presentation, accompanying a small quiz to test
and verify the learning and critical technical advice documents such as knowledge
packs, a disease specific guidance document compilation.
2. Most of the materials in the knowledge resources are already in a downloadable for-
mat and can be quickly published to support response.
3. In most cases, the publishing cycle takes only few days from the day when an out-
break alert was started.
4. All the presentations are designed to be fit for small screens considering nearly half
of the users rely on their mobile devices to access the platform.
For example, the two knowledge resources in response to Ebola outbreak in the Dem-
ocratic Republic of the Congo (May 2017) and pneumonic plague outbreak in Mada-
gascar (October 2017) provided video lectures that could be viewed online and down-
loaded in HD and SD format; the audio, transcripts and the presentation of the lectures
8 T. Rohloff, H. Utunen, J. Renz, Y. Zhao, G. Gamhewage, and C. Meinel
can also be acquired through a download function. The process of launching an emer-
gency knowledge resource usually begins with identifying what materials already exist
on the platform, which languages are most commonly spoken by the affected commu-
nities, and what essential knowledge is needed by responders. Existing materials are
then adapted by adding outbreak-specific recommendations (Figure 2).
Fig. 2. Production Flow Chart for Emergency Knowledge Resources
Taken the previous two knowledge resources as example, the video lectures were pre-
viously conducted as part of the video lectures for the Pandemic and epidemic-prone
diseases, one of OpenWHO’s earliest courses. Having introductory disease lectures
ready ensured a timely adaptation of the learning elements into outbreak-specific re-
sources. OpenWHO has a standing agreement with Translators Without Borders4
(TWB) to translate health emergency related materials into local languages. TWB pro-
vided continued support translating materials from English or French into local lan-
guages spoken by the affected communities. In this case, the translated languages were
Lingala (DRC) and Malagasy (Madagascar). Once live, the courses were disseminated
through the Incident Management System to WHO regional and country offices. Prac-
titioners can also download the materials or use them offline through the mobile apps.
4 Lessons Learnt in Previous Health Emergencies
The emergency knowledge resources approach was tested during three recent out-
breaks: Ebola in Democratic Republic of the Congo in May 2017, pneumonic plague
in Madagascar in October 2017, and diphtheria in the Rohingya refugee setting of Cox’s
Bazar, Bangladesh in December 2017. Worldwide, a record 130 million people are in
need of humanitarian assistance, and disease outbreaks are a constant global threat.
Knowledge exists for battling many known disease outbreaks, but the challenge is to
get the latest science and knowledge into hands and minds of decision-makers and
frontline responders. Even more difficult is to capture, package and deliver knowledge
on new diseases.
4
https://translatorswithoutborders.org/
OpenWHO: Online Knowledge Transfer for Emergency Response 9
4.1 Key Findings from Recent Outbreaks
This section looks at three case studies from use of OpenWHO learning resources in
disease outbreaks. Key findings are gathered from data and statistics and analyzed fol-
lowing these emergency events.
Case Study I: Ebola Outbreak in Democratic Republic of the Congo (May 2017).
In May 2017, two years following the devastating outbreak of Ebola in West Africa,
the disease resurfaced in a remote area in Likati Health Zone, Bas Uele Province in the
north of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), bordering Central African Republic
[3]. Extensive number of WHO’s technical documents and guidance were existing at
the time which had to be rapidly adapted to the current geographic and social contexts
as well as made more easily accessible and digestible to frontline responders and deci-
sion-makers responding to the outbreak. The knowledge dissemination platform of
choice was OpenWHO. An online video course with knowledge resources for Ebola
responders was launched within days following the onset of the outbreak (the platform
was already available in open beta at this time). According to identification of the most
commonly spoken languages in the region, it was rapidly translated from English to
French and to Lingala, language spoken in the northern parts of DRC. 233 French
speaking and 392 English and Lingala speaking Ebola responders participated in the
course. According to the data, the course was not only taken by those being deployed
to Democratic Republic of the Congo, but also by people in neighboring countries, such
as Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, Cameroon and Rwanda.
When looking at the users (Figure 3) of the Ebola Knowledge Resource can be stated
that the course attracts very diverse audience from volunteers and students to national
ministries and institutes, United Nations country teams, WHO staff, non-governmental
staff and other interested users.
Fig. 3. Ebola Knowledge Resource User Affiliation
Learning from the Ebola response in 2017, the OpenWHO team has developed a learn-
ing path for frontline responders and the OpenWHO platform is currently featuring five
10 T. Rohloff, H. Utunen, J. Renz, Y. Zhao, G. Gamhewage, and C. Meinel
learning resources (Figure 4). Ebola virus disease basic introduction and Knowledge
resources for responders are provided in three languages: English, French and Lingala.
Fig. 4. Online Learning Path on OpenWHO for Ebola Responders
Case Study II: Pneumonic Plague Outbreak in Madagascar (October 2017). Be-
tween 1 August and 22 November 2017, the Madagascar Ministry of Public Health
reported a total 2,348 cases of plague, including 202 deaths [4]. Plague occurs season-
ally in Madagascar, usually between September and April each year. However, the dif-
ference this time was that the outbreak presented itself in a severe pneumonic form as
opposed to bubonic form and was hitting densely populated urban areas, including the
capital Antananarivo. Given the rapid incubation period of pneumonic plague and the
possibility of death within 2-4 days, it was vital to be able to adapt and to disseminate
the existing WHO guidance and resources to frontline responders as quickly as possible
and in languages they understand.
This need resulted in a multidisciplinary online course in English, French and Mal-
agasy hosted on the OpenWHO platform. The one-hour course focused on refreshing
knowledge on transmission cycle of the disease, the difference between bubonic and
pneumonic plague, various public health concerns associated with an outbreak of this
disease as well as on social aspects, such as building community trust in plague out-
break response. Data shows that 552 people from more than 70 countries took the
course during the outbreak, from which 18 were from Madagascar and 26 were from
neighboring islands and countries, such as South Africa, Mozambique, Kenya, Sey-
chelles, Mauritius, Reunion and Ethiopia.
Registered users included many public health professionals. For example, in Mada-
gascar, the course was taken by health workers from the Ministry on Public Health,
Health for All Foundation, Institute Pasteur Madagascar, Save the Children Interna-
tional and others; students from University of Madagascar as well as partners from
UNFPA and UNICEF. The majority of responders were dispatched to the response
from other countries and attended the course prior their deployment in their respective
countries.
Case Study III: Diphtheria Outbreak in Cox Bazar, Bangladesh (December 2017).
In December 2017, respiratory diphtheria was spreading among Rohingya refugees in
Cox Bazar, Bangladesh. WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme supported the miti-
OpenWHO: Online Knowledge Transfer for Emergency Response 11
gation of the crisis through a number of health interventions, including an online learn-
ing course on clinical management for diphtheria, hosted on the OpenWHO platform.
The 4-hour online course, based on WHO’s guidelines, aimed to provide basic infor-
mation on diphtheria and was targeted for clinicians caring for patients in vulnerable
settings, such as that in Cox Bazar, and was applicable to other settings that share sim-
ilar challenges due to limited laboratory capacity, availability of treatment facilities,
lack of trained personnel, medical supplies as well as supportive care.
The WHO response team decided that the best way to transfer knowledge to clinical
teams in different parts of the world was to create an online course and host it on the
OpenWHO learning platform. The course was launched on the same day as the Emer-
gency Medical Teams (EMTs) were about to board the plane to Bangladesh. 300 clini-
cal experts took the online course during the first month of its launch with majority of
enrollments coming from Bangladesh (48), followed by the United States (46), the
United Kingdom (35), Yemen (28), India (24) and others. The material has been further
translated into Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia, French and Spanish given diphtheria out-
breaks in Yemen, Indonesia, Haiti and Venezuela.
4.2 General Findings and Key Challenges
The three knowledge resources were all marketed in a similar manner with a number
of key dissemination channels identified for the launch to reach the target audiences
and to raise awareness to the ongoing events. The channels included:
─ WHO’s digital content dissemination channels
─ WHO’s Incident Management System
─ WHO’s surge capacity and partner networks
─ OpenWHO’s email announcements
─ Emails to specifically identified target individuals
The accumulative enrollment data in Figure 5 shows a comparison of the numbers of
enrollments in the particular knowledge resources during the first 30 days of emergen-
cies response [5]. Day 1 represents the day when the course was launched. In general,
all the knowledge resources received a stable increase in the number of enrollments. To
be more specific, the Ebola (FR) and Diphtheria received an instant growth in the first
7 days of publishing, while user numbers for the other three courses only started to
grow faster on Day 7, followed by a linear increase until Day 30 when the outbreak
started to wind down. The number of enrollments in the Diphtheria course slowed down
during the second week, but soared dramatically starting from Day 14. It is possible to
attribute such strong performance to an increase in user traffic observed from Yemen,
possibly due to simultaneous outbreaks in the country.
12 T. Rohloff, H. Utunen, J. Renz, Y. Zhao, G. Gamhewage, and C. Meinel
300
250
200
Number of
150
Enrollments
100
50
0
Day1 Day7 Day14 Day30
Plague (FR) Plague (EN) Ebola (FR)
Ebola (EN) Diphteria
Fig. 5. Number of Knowledge Resource Enrollments during the 30-Day Period after Launch
Initial marketing and dissemination efforts resulted in other public health agencies pick-
ing up the information and highlighting it on their own dissemination channels. Ac-
cording to data gathered following the three events, the top 5 course referrer plat-forms
were: social media (2,104), WHO’s website (1,581), Disaster Information Management
Research Center in U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (1,454), University
of Toronto, Department of Global Health (473) and online search (76).
Overall, the usage of emergency knowledge resource on OpenWHO has demon-
strated a satisfying level of outreach to the targeted audience. It has proven the possi-
bility of engaging and training a large number of people simultaneously at a reasonably
low cost yet with the complexity that any traditional training operation would require.
Moreover, the emergency knowledge resource has been proven effective enough as a
standard practice to produce and disseminate materials in a timely manner and facilitate
feasible quick technical content revision without severe delay or interruption of the
dissemination process.
Production of Multi-Language Materials. There are still some factors to be examined
in depth, key topic being the local language productions. The need to produce in local
health care worker and local populations languages is widely recognized. It is however
complex to arrange for language mapping, getting materials translated, which after the
content verification has to be completed by a subject matter expert native in the local
language and only then to go for material publishing and production in audio or other
formats. Yet, another challenge remains to have the online packaged resources commu-
nicated to the right focal points for the most efficient use. This process in total can vary
between days and weeks and it is crucial for the response to have appropriate materials
at the very onset of the disease outbreak. The OpenWHO platform hosts materials in
18 local languages but it will need more automated systems in getting materials into
languages, and not only to local languages, but also to produce automated transcripts
to arrange faster for any language translations. While the generic production process is
OpenWHO: Online Knowledge Transfer for Emergency Response 13
organized in-house at the WHO, there is also a need to arrange for field-based material
production, including recording materials on-site. This would require suitable person-
nel and gear at the frontline. Whereas headquarter-based productions are very cost ef-
ficient and work stream is established, it remains yet to be solved how to arrange pro-
ductions in the distance.
Limited Qualitative User Feedback and Evaluation. The OpenWHO team also has
identified a key challenge in acquiring more in-depth user analysis and evaluations. The
user insights would help identify the gaps and possible issues in the material formats
and use. Currently 30,000 individual users are on average enrolled to 1.5 courses each.
This shows that a critical practitioner mass is in the platform and actively engages in
the response of various disease outbreaks. The users can discuss on the OpenWHO
platform collaboration spaces and ask questions from the experts. Beyond this function
there is no established two-way communication between course producers and users
yet and no post-mission surveys in place.
Operating in Low-Bandwidth Areas. The courses focusing on the three events were
accessed from more than 100 countries, including those experiencing the events. It
helped to observe page loading time from different places across the globe and high-
lighted challenges to be addressed in the future. While the average load time is 8.52 sec-
onds, the data varies greatly from country to country. In Nigeria, the page load time is
34.5% longer than the average, while in India it takes nearly double the time; whereas
in countries such as Switzerland, Germany, or United Kingdom people take less than
half of the time, namely 4 seconds to load the same page. Improving user performance
with limited internet access is a priority and a current research topic in the cooperation
with HPI.
5 Future Work
OpenWHO has demonstrated how massive online learning tools can facilitate health
emergency response through making open source materials easily accessible to WHO
staff and partners. Further research is expected on the effectiveness of an automated
translation tool, and a computerized translation of the materials into other languages.
The WHO wants to learn from the forefront of the response but does not yet have a
process to collect this feedback. By using data analytics WHO has a lot of operational
information on the use of the OpenWHO platform such as the numbers of users which
has constantly increased since the launch of the platform. Data also shows that the num-
bers of users have increased during outbreaks, but OpenWHO does not yet have a sys-
tem to collect feedback from users after the outbreaks. A survey following 3-6 months
after the course completion would need to be developed to measure the impact of the
online learning resources at OpenWHO. The numbers of learners are easy to measure,
and it can be shown that the numbers have increased during outbreaks, but for example
14 T. Rohloff, H. Utunen, J. Renz, Y. Zhao, G. Gamhewage, and C. Meinel
the actual experience and usefulness have not been measured yet beyond informal dis-
cussion amongst the outbreak response staff.
Next to further improvements of the offline capabilities of the mobile apps, like quiz-
zes and audio playlists of videos, it is also planned to partially support offline usage
within the web platform. Additionally, a low-bandwidth mode of the video player is
work in progress, which combines the presentation slides with the audio file to signifi-
cantly reduce the needed amount of data [6].
Furthermore, a need to systematically reach out to practitioners and finding new
ways for marketing OpenWHO courses is an ongoing area of interest. The OpenWHO
applications help in alerting new resources and communicating; and platform an-
nouncements work well for existing users. Further analysis on how to target and reach
the new and critical users and how to find OpenWHO in the first place is still to be
worked on. A search engine optimization is currently in progress and other internet-
based solutions would help to better disseminate OpenWHO resources.
Acknowledgements. The OpenWHO team thanks Monta Reinfelde, Michael Reza
Farzi, Melissa Attias and Paula Christen for their input and innovative approaches, as
well as various course and reporting products in all work areas related to OpenWHO
during the platform inception year. Furthermore, the OpenWHO and HPI teams would
like to acknowledge Ann Katrin Kuessner, Felix Merz, Helene Kolkmann, Kim-Pascal
Borchart and Lea Katharina Gerneth for their tremendous support in the technical im-
plementation and documentation of the platform as part of their undergraduate studies.
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