Global Health Nexus, Fall 2000

Pioneering a Digital Curriculum

Last fall, NYU Dentistry, along with four other dental schools, began to introduce a completely digital curriculum that will become mandatory for all students in fall 2001. The program is voluntary this year. After each semester, students will trade in an old DVD for an updated version containing the entire curriculum: workbooks, laboratory manuals, and lecture slides, as well as textbooks. This leap in technology was featured in a cover story in the “Circuits” section of the New York Times.
The other participating schools are the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, the SUNY/Buffalo dental school, and the dental schools at Boston University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

This marks the first time that digital media will completely replace books for all students in an institution of higher education. Weighing less than one ounce, each DVD will replace more than two million pages, thousands of images, and more than 400 pounds of books and manuals.