How to Build a Website for Teaching Medical Transcription

Medical transcribers are very much in demand. This provides opportunity for someone to teach a medical transcription course. The Internet is a great source for many students who would like to learn different online course offerings. There are requirements that have to be fulfilled in order to open a website to teach medical transcription courses. This article will show you how to meet those requirements.

Things You'll Need

• Domain name Website hosting services Website programmer and developer Medical transcription software Online textbooks Transcription tools Encryption software

Instructions

1. Think of a name for your website. It should be something that would be easy to remember. For example, try www.ABCmedtranschool.com, as opposed to www.johndoeschoolofmedicaltranscription.com. Keep it short and simple.

2. Find a website hosting service to host your online medical transcription school. Choose a company with excellent records with the Better Business Bureau and an excellent record of accomplishment in providing a robust and highly available site. This way, the students can access the courses 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

3. Acquire accreditation. Get it from the Association of Health Documentation Integrity, formerly known as the American Association for Medical Transcription. Also get it from the Distance Education and Training Council. DETC is a non-profit agency that protects the rights of the students who opt for distance learning education by defining, maintaining and promoting educational excellence. If you have this type of accreditation, it promotes eligibility and credibility as an online education institution.

4. Hire a web developer who will develop and design your website. Build a site that will be simple for students to navigate through to get to their courses. Create a homepage, services page, course page, about us page and contact us page.

5. Process secured online registration and payment of tuition. Your web developer can assist you in creating a secure website by using encryption or "verisign" to process payment and students' information.

6. Create a student page or online center, which will be your student's one-stop shop for resources, materials, lab work and exams. Keep this site securd by allowing only enrolled students with log in credentials to enter.

7. Create a course syllabus. There are different stages in completing a medical transcription degree. Work with your web developer to outline the syllabus, which lists all the courses from prerequisite courses to the major courses.

8. Create online laboratory (lab) courses. Since a requirement for a medical transcription job is to learn medical terms, it would be helpful to create lab courses that the students can take in order to better learn their subjects.

9. Create online textbooks. You can provide students a list of reading materials or textbooks to buy. However, it is also helpful if you can provide them with online textbooks. Whether you are the author of the textbooks or someone else, having the online textbooks will help your students understand the courses better and excel in this field.

10. Provide typing fluency material. You can also recommend products for students to buy such as Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. This course will help the students improve and attain advanced typing skills.

11. Create online tests or examinations. After completion of each unit course, it would be helpful to assess the students' knowledge by providing unit exams or tests. Ask your web developer to program the tests with multiple choices, as well as fill in the blanks. Have the students complete the transcription and use a grading tool that will pick up mistakes. You can then provide a point grading system that you will explain. For example, a 30-point test may only have six items but have 5 points each. You may want to give more points for multiple paragraphs transcription work.

12. Install transcribing software on your website with the help of your web developer for your students to practice on. An example of transcribing software is a product called expressscribe, which is a tool commonly for people in this profession. This software works in Windows and Mac. This also works in compatible foot pedals.

13. Provide educational CDs or downloadable versions of medical dictations on your website, which the students can practice transcribing using the software you provide on your website.

14. Provide a foot pedal. A foot pedal can easily play, stop, fast forward and rewind medical dictations allowing your students to type as they listen to dictations from CDs. The foot pedal hooks up to a computer through the USB port. You can add the price of this foot pedal to the tuition fee you will charge your student or you can recommend products or sites they can acquire the product themselves.

15. Provide a portion for your students to upload their completed materials. You may require your students extra homework or assignments that they can complete at certain due dates that they can upload online through a section on your website that you can call "Upload Documents."

16. Provide a section for questions and answers. A forum will be great to have so that you and the students can discuss the course to help them through the challenges.

17. Provide a grading section for each test, practice, lab work and extra homework. This will give your students an overview of how they are faring as far as accomplishing and passing all the requirements.

18. Provide an official transcript upon completion of the course.

Tips & Warnings

• Regularly check up on your website. Make sure that you oversee the activities on a timely basis. Respond to your students questions or emails on a timely basis.

• Provide a secure site by using encryption software and password protection.

Resources

• Association of Health Documentation Integrity
• Distance Education & Training Council
• Transcription Foot Pedal
• Transcription Software