Reduced funding, rising student numbers, geographical dispersal, and increased competition in a complex global market have put medical schools under pressure to embrace computer assisted learning

New technologies may have important educational advantages, but without support and training for staff and students they could prove an expensive disaster

Expansion of computer assisted learning requires cultural change as well as careful strategic planning, resource sharing, staff incentives, active promotion of multidisciplinary working, and effective quality control

It is becoming “a truth universally acknowledged” that the education of undergraduate medical students will be enhanced through the use of computer assisted learning. Access to the wide range of online options illustrated in the figure must surely make learning more exciting, effective, and likely to be retained. This assumption is potentially but by no means inevitably correct.

Deans of medical faculties often receive requests for development funding for computer assisted learning projects. Decisions to introduce these projects into the undergraduate curriculum are generally justified by one or more of the arguments listed in box 1.

Box 1: Why fund computer assisted learning?

Computer assisted learning is inevitable–Individual lecturers and departments are already beginning to introduce a wide range of computer based applications, sometimes in a haphazard way. Planned and coordinated development is better than indiscriminate expansion

It is convenient and flexible–Courses supported by computer assisted learning applications may require fewer face to face lectures and seminars and place fewer geographical and temporal constraints on staff and students. Students at peripheral hospitals or primary care centres may benefit in particular

Unique presentational benefits–Computer presentation is particularly suited to subjects that are visually intensive, detail oriented, and difficult to conceptualise, such as complex biochemical processes or microscopic images.[1] Furthermore, “virtual” cases may reduce the need to use animal or human tissue in learning

Personalised learning–Each learner can progress at his or her preferred pace. They can repeat, interrupt, and resume at will, which may have particular advantages for weaker students