ABSTRACT
The volume you are holding in your hands is the product of a two-year-old project, starting back in 2016. During the preparations for the International Evoked Response Audiometry Study Group (IERASG) XXV symposium (Warsaw, May 21–25, 2017), I had been involved in a series of discussions regarding the possibility of distributing to students and professionals multimedia material that could improve performance in class. During these discussions, we had identified a series of practical problems that could be summarized by this: The existing multimedia content changes rapidly and, most importantly, vanishes from its temporary depository sites. A classical example for this is the YouTube channel.
As an editor of the Otoacoustic Emissions Portal (www.otoemissions.org), I had faced similar problems in the past; thus I offered to my colleagues the possibility to use the Portal as a reservoir of multimedia material related to audiology, speech pathology and hearing science. While this solution was probably feasible, back in October 2016, several sub-problems emerged related to the costs of maintaining the multimedia reservoir and the organization of the material into a coherent collection. For the maintenance costs we asked a number of sponsors, and by 2018 we managed to stimulate the interests of the biomedical hearing devices industry. For the second part, that is, the creation of a coherent collection of material, with the generous contribution of 40 international colleagues, we were able to author the book you are holding in your hands.
