Global health institute to use iPads in course's field research

Apple's institutional fanboy is bringing another one of the company's sleek products to campus: the iPad.

This Fall, the Duke Global Health Institute will distribute iPads in "Research Methods in Global Health Sciences II," a course in DGHI's Master of Science in Global Health degree program. The initiative is funded by the Duke Center for Instructional Technology and comes six years after the University distributed iPods to all incoming freshmen in the Class of 2008.

“Our primary goal is to equip our students with a toolset that allows them to make the most of their time in the field,” DGHI member Jen'nan Read, who teaches the course, said in a statement Monday. “As calculation, graphing, and presentation-creation functions of the iPad are put to use in the field, so too is the ability for students to focus on mastering the more complex methods by which they are basing their research.”

The iPads will be used in fieldwork and will increase research efficiency, Read said. Students can collect more data in low-resource environments and the device's research and survey applications will contribute to ease of data collection, analysis and presentation. The initiative aims to train students for a low-resource global health research project next summer.

The program is also part of the University's greater initiative to incorporate new technology with education. The CIT announced in April that it would add iPads to the University's collection of Flip cameras and camcorders, among others, that are available for loan in The Link in Perkins Library.