immunology-illustrations-elearning-scien

SERIES OF ILLUSTRATIONS FOR
AN E-LEARNING MODULE

Explain complex biological processes
with simple images and language

CLIENT

Department of Pathology & Medical Biology, University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG)

THE CHALLENGE

During the first year of medicine at the University of Groningen, students learn about immunology. This includes the development of the immune system B-cells. It's a long and complicated process which involves some key steps that, if gone wrong, can give rise to a range of diseases known as B-cell lymphomas.
The goal was to create an interactive and comprehensive learning tool to help students understand these processes and prepare for Q&A lectures.

THE PROJECT

The solution was to create three E-Learning modules tailored to the UMCG curriculum, one for each main topic. My task was to brainstorm and create images -and a few short animations- to support the written content and help the students understand the complex processes. Color coding was kept consistent across the modules, and for each stage, images displaying the occurring at the cellular level and genetic level were displayed side by side.

The E-Learning modules where the illustrations are featured are available at the Lymphoma Research Groningen website. You can view them if you have a University of Groningen (RUG) or UMCG account or by logging in with a guest account.
Details are provided on the site.

VIEW E-LEARNING MODULES

One B-cell development module's teaching goals was to help the students relate what was happening to the B-cell at cellular level, where it was in the body and what was going on inside the cell nucleus at the genetic level. To make sure students could see all of this information at a glance, we developed the following layout:

Immunology-illustrations-layout-cristina

Other images were presented individually, like the one you can see below. The modules include many more images and information, together with interactive quizzes, short animations and interactive 3D models, to help students understand the topics, get curious, prepare well for their Q&A lectures, and ace their exams.