Virtual patients: practical advice for clinical authors using Labyrinth.

BACKGROUND: Labyrinth is a tool originally developed in the University of Edinburgh's Learning Technology Section for authoring and delivering branching case scenarios. The scenarios can incorporate game-informed elements such as scoring, randomising, avatars and counters. Labyrinth has grown more popular internationally since a version of the build was made available on the open source network Source Forge. This paper offers help and advice for clinical educators interested in creating cases. CONTEXT: Labyrinth is increasingly recognised as a tool offering great potential for delivering cases that promote rich, situated learning opportunities for learners. There are, however, significant challenges to generating such cases, not least of which is the challenge for potential authors in approaching the process of constructing narrative-rich, context-sensitive cases in an unfamiliar authoring environment. This paper offers a brief overview of the principles informing Labyrinth cases (game-informed learning), and offers some practical advice to better prepare educators with little or no prior experience. INNOVATION AND IMPLICATIONS: Labyrinth has continued to grow and develop, from its roots as a research and development environment to one that is optimised for use by non-technical clinical educators. The process becomes increasingly iterative and better informed as the teaching community push the software further. The positive implications of providing practical advice and concept insight to new case authors is that it ideally leads to a broader base of users who will inform future iterations of the software. © Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2010.