The Pentalfa project. 3: participant evaluations of the interactivity of the educational videoconferences and the effectiveness of project promotion.

A distance continuing medical education programme was established at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven using multipoint videoconferencing via ISDN lines at 384 kbit/s. During each academic year, 24-26 sessions were organized. The interactivity afforded by the videoconferencing was investigated during the first three years of the project. More than 60% of the participants rated the interactivity as good or very good. No differences were found between the sites or over the three years of the project, but female participants were more positive (66% making ratings of good or very good) in this regard than male participants (57%). Also, the effectiveness of the various types of publicity used to promote the programme was analysed. A brochure was the main source of information (62% of participants heard of the programme by this means), followed by direct mailings (27%), posters (15%), personal contact (14%) and the programme's Website (1%). The proportions of participants who heard of the programme through these different means varied with age and gender.