Using an Informatics Course to Support an Herbal Medicine Course for Learning Herbs with Volatile Oil

Abstract

Phytochemistry is the one of subjects for pharmacy students. The subject is linking about herbs and its chemical compounds which contain pharmacological activities. The contents of phytochemistry are describing the structures of the large number of secondary metabolites found in plants, the functions of these compounds in human, plant biology and environment, and the biosynthesis of these compounds. In academic year of 2016, the third year pharmacy students, who planned to learn phytochemistry on the topic of volatile oil, were assigned to search and gather herbal information about 29 herbs containing volatile oil. This assignment was a part of an informatics course, namely, Health Informatics. The objectives of the assignment were to prepare the students’ informatics skills and review their basic knowledge about aromatic herbs for the phytochemistry lesson. To accomplish the goals, the Knowledge Initiator for Herbal Information (a version for pharmacy students, KUIHerbRx) was used as a tool for collecting the students’ opinions. Furthermore, we analyzed the input opinions given by the students. The results of analysis showed the students’ interests, responsibility and ability in collecting reliable herbal information. The students done the assignments more than teachers’ expectation in term of the number of contributed opinions. The most interested herb was Dill (Anethum graveolens L.). The highest number of opinions given by one student was 33 opinions. The most interested topic was medicinal indication. This work offered the method of using an informatics course for improving informatics skills and preparing for the phytochemistry lesson in the near future.

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Author Information
Bunyapa Wangwattana, Silpakorn University, Thailand
Verayuth Lertnattee, Silpakorn University, Thailand

• Category: ACEID2018, Uncategorised

Posted by James Alexander Gordon

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