OCULUS

Oculus is a multi-national project together with India. It is coordinated by Hoggskolen I Sorost Norge in Norway.

OCULUS is a consortium of educators from optometry schools in Europe (Norway, UK, Spain and the Netherlands) with the aim to reform optometric education in Israel and India towards European standards. This means greater employability and job mobility for graduates, and reduction in blindness and vision impairment due to better-trained optometrists.

The project is organized in three main pillars. In pillar 1, called 'DipE Accreditation', new educational resources are developed for the curricula in Israel and India that are based on the high standards of the European Diploma in Optometry (DipE). Pillars 2 and 3 bring innovations to optometric education, enhancing the standard beyond DipE. In pillar 2, 'Novel Educational Modules', educational resources for evidence based optometric practice (EBP) will be developed. EBP is a vital part of effective patient care but is still a new concept in optometric education. In pillar 3 'Technology Enhanced Learning', a personal learning network (PLN) will be created for optometry students and practitioners, as an online portfolio of patient encounters and platform for peer review and discussion.

Israeli HEIs:

* Bar Ilan University

* Hadassah Academic College

* Sapir Academic College

Indian HEIs:

* University of Hyderabad

* Manipal University

* Chitkara University

Programme HEIs:

* Universitat Politecnica De Catalunya, Spain

* Stichting Hogeschool Utrecht, Netherlands

* The City University, UK

For more information about the project, please visit its website.