General Description

Description

The primary goal of the website https://pharm.academy is to facilitate teaching and education for students participating in university programs (medical, pharmaceutical, veterinary, and dental students). The use of the website is free, but registration is required to access the test tasks. Users create a user account during the registration process, using the provided information, which grants them access to the full content of the website (including learning materials and exercise solutions).

Learning Materials

The website does not provide comprehensive study materials, but rather short summary-like notes and numerous questions. In fact, it teaches through questions and test tasks (using the proprietary LTQ-TTQ method, described later).

The learning materials on the website are reviewed, but they may contain errors or accidental typos. If you come across any, please notify us by simply clicking on the "Comments, Feedback" links or by using the contact form to send us your observations.

Tests

The online, interactive, dynamic, self-checking, reviewed, and randomly generated test tasks are prepared based on our database. We create various types of tasks, and the number of tasks may vary from chapter to chapter. Along with the task solutions, explanations are often provided, as we believe this to be the most effective way of learning on an online platform (LTQ-TTQ method).

LTQ-TTQ Method

We learn or recall something by answering every question.

It is extremely difficult to solely acquire a vast amount of material, such as pharmacology or physiology, through reading, especially within a school year (10 months). Similar methods used in learning and teaching foreign languages require deepening the acquired knowledge. The best way to achieve this is through practice using questions and tasks.

For each question, whenever possible, we provide explanations of why a particular answer is true or false. This is the essence of our LTQ-TTQ method (learn through questions and teach through questions).

Our Motto

If it's important, teach it; if it's not important, don't ask.

Selection of Questions

Our free service for any higher education institution allows customization of questions based on personal/faculty preferences. If a question is not necessary for a particular faculty, the staff of the institute or department teaching the subject can exclude it (if they do not teach it, do not consider it important, or if a particular medication is not available in the country, etc.). While this changes (reduces) the total number of available questions, it enables students to use a curated collection of questions and focus their time on mastering the relevant material. In such cases, the number of selected questions needs to be redefined, and based on that, we extrapolate to the total number of questions. This provides information to students from different universities about the percentage of the curriculum they have completed and how much more they need to study.

Levels

Each question is assigned a classification based on its difficulty level.

Presumed knowledge: These are questions that build upon the assumed knowledge of the subject. Minimum (passing grade): These are the essential concepts that we believe must be known to achieve a passing grade. Basic (moderate, good): Questions at this level require a solid understanding of the subject. Expert only (difficult tasks beyond the level of a 5): These are for the truly dedicated individuals seeking an advanced challenge. A.U.V. (Actually a switch to indicate whether the user wants to learn/practice human or veterinary medicine-related substances)

Progress

The website tracks progress. By using it, premium users can see (and select) what they still need to practice, but even in the free version available to everyone with registration, the questions gradually become more challenging. We also apply our own spaced repetition algorithm to select the questions.

Primary considerations: Ask only essential things, ensure professional accuracy in the questions, and strive for error-free content.

How and What Can We Learn?

Currently, the website contains various chapters and topics of pharmacology, and the content continues to expand with new questions added weekly.

In the first step, the student (registered user) selects a topic they want to learn and writes a "jump" for it. The questions for the jump are chosen from the level 0 questions. These questions cover the fundamentals that we recommend knowing before starting the topic. For pharmacology, important concepts from physiology, biochemistry, and microbiology, as well as knowledge of certain diseases and conditions, are considered prerequisites, and the jump needs to be written based on these topics. Prior mastery of these concepts is required before starting a new topic.

A registered user can study two topics from a subject simultaneously and can choose a new one only after completing at least 80% in one of them (premium users are not required to meet this criterion, but we do not recommend skipping sections as the focus should be on learning, not skipping ahead).

Premium features can be accessed through a subscription. Hidden or locked content on the website is linked to the core material.

Classification of Topics and Chapters

Please note that certain chapters (in pharmacology) could be associated with more or different topics than how we have organized them. To the best of our knowledge, we have tried to apply a generally accepted classification. We don't believe there is a perfect division – if there were, everyone would use it, including us.

You can view the classification of topics and chapters we employ on the site map.

Immediate Goals

From the initial concept, we designed the website to be multilingual. Its modular structure allows for significant reduction in translation time and enables simultaneous translation. The English and German content and questions are being developed alongside the Hungarian version. In the next phase, planned for the upcoming years, we aim to translate the material into additional European and world languages.

Among our immediate plans is also to make available subjects that serve as a foundation for pharmacology (biochemistry, physiology, microbiology), as well as subjects related to specialized drugs and pharmacy (analytical chemistry, organic chemistry, pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmacognosy, pharmaceutical technology). The next subject is expected to launch in the 2020/2021 academic year.

One of our objectives, which we do not hide, is to organize competitions among different educational institutions at the national or even international level, where students can solve questions in their own language. The questions for such challenging or national (possibly international) competitions are derived from the intersection of questions that are active for all institutions or have been approved by instructors from participating institutions.