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On Tuesday, June 6th, CCTS hosted university research teams from across the South at the I-Corps South Regional Training at The Edge of Chaos. The National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps program prepares scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the university laboratory and accelerate the economic and societal benefits on research projects that are ready to move toward commercialization. 

Eleven teams from UAB, Georgia Tech (GA Tech), University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa (UA), and University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UT) spent the day learning about entrepreneurship, innovation, and customer discovery, with the goal of helping them find successful commercial applications for their research and future grant opportunities through the NSF. The next step for team members is to connect with as many potential “target customers” for their products as possible. CCTS encourages any specialists in the areas listed below to please say “yes” if any I-Corps team member calls and requests a brief interview.

[Editor’s note: I-Corps teams are required to conduct customer discovery outside of their home institution. UAB teams will reach out to specialists at other I-Corps training participating institutions; likewise, GA Tech, UA, and UT teams will likely reach out to UAB specialists]. 

For UAB faculty and students who are interested in I-Corps but were unable to attend this training, there will be a 14-week course in the Fall, ENT 450, that will offer a robust look at the I-Corps program and allow researchers to dive more deeply into the commercial applications of their research. For information about this course, and other upcoming I-Corps South programming, please contact Dr. Molly Wasko at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or Mickey Millsap at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Voltron, a research team from UAB, presents their tech to the I-Corps South cohort.

Georgia Tech team ExpAero brainstorms on their business assumptions.

UAB Associate Professor Dr. Anthony Hood discusses his business thesis with teammate Brandon Pickett.

UAB’s Edge of Chaos was a fitting setting for I-Corps training.

UAB Professor and Rehabilitation Science Doctorate Program Director Dr. David Brown talks with his teammate about their invention, the “Slip/Stick.”

As a medical intern, Dr. James Willig, CCTS Informatics Co-Director and UAB Assistant Dean of Clinical Education, liked to play games. Like a lot of his peers, he played them on his Palm Pilot, trying to disguise this activity as “research” when on rounds. “We knew what games we could get away with and what games made sounds that would get us busted” he told a packed audience at the CCTS June Forum.

After the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) changed duty hour standards for residents in 2003 and 2011, Willig, now an associate professor of medicine, began to wonder how the limits were affecting medical education and training. He also recognized that, while today’s residents are “more likely posting to Facebook than playing Blackjack,” the instinct to “check out” during a dry lecture on rounds isn’t uncommon and is easier than ever to hide given the ubiquity of smartphones. The lack of engagement, plus lost training time, struck Willig as both a problem and an opportunity. 

“Have you ever studied for three hours and felt like it was only 5 minutes? Me neither! But who hasn’t experienced this phenomenon while playing a game? I began to wonder, could we apply elements of gamification to graduate medical education?” Weaving in the final thread, the idea of continual improvement and lifelong learning underlying the Kaizen management philosophy, and the basis for an experimental teaching platform was born.

Key Gaming Elements

Willig built as many “behavioral hooks” into the software as he could to see if students could learn while playing, borrowing from the reward systems commonly used in online games. In combination, he noted the following were effective at increasing both motivation and engagement:

Intrinsic rewards:

Self-efficacy: increased knowledge, acquisition of a new skill
Personal challenge: problem-solving
Socialization: collaboration with colleagues, social interaction

Extrinsic rewards:

Achievements: points, badges, levels
Reputation: status within the community of users

Other key elements included concise questions focused on key teaching points and the use of humor, mnemonics, and visual images to increase attention.

Kaizen Catches Fire

Working with the CCTS Informatics team, Willig rolled out the first Kaizen game for the Dept. of Internal Medicine’s (IM) residency program in 2011-12. Residents could play on teams as themselves or as an alias and could see their rank against other residents on a game board. Willig gave funny names to the levels, and noted, “Nobody wanted to be a ‘petri dish’ or on ‘crutches,’ the two lowest performance levels!” Residents answered a total of 16,427 questions, showing significant retention of knowledge. 

Based on such a positive outcome, and with several requests to build new games, the CCTS Informatics team set out to create an interface that would enable educators to use the Kaizen platform tools to build their own games. Partnerships developed among general medical programs, and with the Schools of Nursing, Dentistry, Public Health, and Business. The different groups used the Kaizen platform in novel ways such as to prepare for board review, to demonstrate learned competencies, to practice medical calculations, or to connect with alumni. Kaizen has even been used to train rural health workers in Kenya so they no longer have to travel when practice guidelines change. “I’ve been so impressed with the creative ways partners are using Kaizen,” Willig said.

The newest game, developed by Dr. David Redden and Mr. Brian Wallace of the CCTS, addresses the NIH requirement for training in rigor, reproducibility, and transparency (R2T) for F, K, and T fellows. The course can be used by institutional training programs (e.g., T32, K12) to fulfill this education expectation in a fun and innovative way. [Editor's Note: It's not too late to register for the next CCTS Kaizen R2T game, which opens on June 19! Register here.] 

The Evolution of a Platform: Kaizen-ME

With internal funding in hand, Willig was able to acquire servers and rebuild the front end of the platform, creating a team landing and communication page. The Kaizen-ME Game Manager enabled educators to set their game parameters: number of players, number of teams, badges, scoring, questions, timed or not, etc. Willig and his team eventually “took away the walls” to enable a shared library of questions, so it took educators less time to develop a new game. Likewise, a library of badges grew and became a shareable resource. To date, more than 87 educational games across 15 disciplines have taught 5,816 distinct Kaizen registered users. In total, 204,722 question responses have occurred.

The Future of Kaizen

Willig believes there is more to learn from studying Kaizen players, beyond the analyses he had already conducted on player attrition, engagement, and retention of knowledge. He plans to look more closely at play style and has developed a Player Efficiency Rating to help analyze the platform's effectiveness. He also plans to add new tools and features for game managers, including the creation of a game library.

In Case You Missed It

Willig's talk is available for viewing on the CCTS YouTube channel. Mark your calendar for our monthly CCTS Forum, which we host the first Wednesday of every month from 4:45-6pm. 

Congratulations to our six CCTS Partner Network Multidisciplinary Pilot Program Award winners for 2017. Their projects seek to address disparities in diseases disproportionately represented within the Deep South, including pediatric cystic fibrosis, cardiovascular disease, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, as well as neuroendocrine, prostate, and breast cancers.

Read more: CCTS Announces 2017 Pilot Awardees

CCTS One Great Community (OGC) partner, Innovate Birmingham, recently graduated its first class of Generation IT students who were unemployed, underemployed, or working a job with low wages and little chance for growth before they applied. Of the class of 18 students, some have already landed positions in IT with the area’s biggest employers, including UAB.

The program, which provides 12 weeks of full-time intensive technical and professional training, seeks to prepare local young adults for immediate entry into the second fastest growing tech sector in the country. Birmingham, designated a TechHire city by the White House, posted more than 5,000 new IT jobs in 2014. With more than 950 unfilled IT occupations, Birmingham’s demand for new IT talent calls for innovative new models to develop the workforce. More than 30 employer partners have signed on to support the program by interviewing candidates, offering positions, providing mentorship, or delivering feedback on course material.

As reported by the Birmingham Times, at the graduation ceremony on May 5, 2017, OGC Council Member Josh Carpenter, PhD, director of External Affairs in the Office of the UAB President and principal investigator for the America’s Promise grant that helps fund the program, stated “We are energized to expand opportunities for young adults in Birmingham that benefit our growing knowledge-based economy.”

Generation IT classes, held at Innovation Depot, are provided by McKinsey Social Initiative. Applicants must be 17 to 29 years old Jefferson County residents and prepared for a rigorous interview and screening process that assesses motivation, competency, and career vision. Help us share the news about this life-changing opportunity—the next class starts on June 5.

Innovate Birmingham offers other training programs as well, including a 14-week coding bootcamp and grant-funded scholarships toward certificates and associate degrees in IT at Jefferson State and Lawson State community colleges or a bachelor’s in Computer Science or Software Engineering at UAB.

Learn more and apply here.