HAP 360: Viral Video — Health Care Policy
While he may not have as many YouTube fans as Justin Bieber, his videos on the popular site do attract their share of hits… Dr. Farrokh Alemi’s 150 videos have now garnered 500,000 views to date. (Alemi notes that the resources have also been viewed by students and non-students alike; with viewers tuning in from around the globe from India to Canada to Africa.) Utilizing these online resource students can, for example, find all they need to know about their assignment for Decision Analysis in Health Care and learn to calculate expected length of a hospital stay using a decision tree.
The extensive online resources were developed to complement Alemi’s and co-faculty member Sanja Avramovic’s Health Administration and Policy class, which is taught in a variety of settings, from face-to- face, to 100% online, to a hybrid.
The YouTube videos are just one element of Alemi’s OER sources. He has also created text and slides for students on the same subject – offering options for different learning styles.
“We now have developed an extensive library of open online resources. The availability of these open courses should encourage other university faculty in Virginia or elsewhere to use part or all of the material. I certainly would encourage it. ” says Alemi.
In addition to the online usage of the OER materials, Alemi points to two other 
significant outcomes of the course re-design which have been identified: Student satisfaction and, importantly, improved grades. In the distance learning sections, the course rating rose from a 4.00 to a 4.43. Grade wise, only six students out of 67 received a grade lower than a B-.
“The 4-VA grant really helped us add to the HAP 360 video library and to achieve this level of success,” notes Alemi. “We were very grateful to receive it.”