improve the outcome of lessons that make use of the simulator. among the most important points highlighted seem to be the preparation of the teacher, consideration of how to impart preliminary information to help people understand the pathophysiology of diabetes, the optimum selection of topics to be covered, the arrangement of the lessons, how to involve each of the participants, and how to deal with questions. other important issues include how to spot and deal with some of the difficulties that may be encountered by participants who apparently seem uninterested, obtaining feedback from the lessons, and practical ideas about how to lead a class. guidelines for health-care professionals planning to teach with aida have been published in the diabetes literature. the same authors have also put together some recommended training requirements for health-carers planning to teach using the aida interactive educational diabetes simulator. the researchers have set out to answer possible questions from teachers using the program, highlight some minimum recommended training requirements for the software, suggest some "hints and tips" for teaching ideas, explain the importance of performing more studies / trials with the program, overview randomised controlled trial usage of the software, and highlight the importance of obtaining feedback from lesson participants. the recommendations seem to be straightforward and should help in formalising training with the program, as well as in the development of a network of teachers "accredited" to give lessons using the software. user reviews independent user reviews of the aida software can be found in the medical / diabetes / computing literature. the aida diabetes simulator has been independently selected for inclusion in the united kingdom national health service national library for health diabetes specialist library list of web resources. non-insulin dependent (type 2) diabetes mellitus the current releases of the downloadable aida software, and aida on-line, do not incorporate functions to model endogenous insulin secretion — which takes place in people with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus type 2, and healthy subjects without diabetes. nevertheless, a wide number of people with insulin-treated type 2 diabetes mellitus have reported finding the aida diabetes simulator of use for learning about balancing insulin and diet in diabetes. this is because many of the principles of insulin dosage adjustment are remarkably similar in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus, and even without an endogenous insulin secretion model function, aida still can offer realistic simulations (from an educational perspective) for people with non-insulin dependent (type 2) diabetes mellitus. the aida developers have published a research paper in 2011 which includes reference to the incorporation of a dedicated function for pancreatic insulin secretion — to be added to a future release of the simulator. further developments given the widespread usage of the aida diabetes simulation software, there has been considerable interest worldwide in updates to the program. work has been reported in the scientific literature into the incorporation of lispro (humalog)-like rapidly acting insulin analogues, and the glargine (lantus) very long-acting insulin analogue, into the freeware diabetes simulator. further information can be found in the medical / scientific literature. a beta release of aida incorporating lispro, regular, nph and glargine insulins is available for download from the aida website. aida v4.5c (beta) is still undergoing testing / further development but has been available without charge from the aida website since 2012. research use separate from its utility as an educational, self-learning, or teaching tool for people with diabetes and their relatives / carers, students and health-care professionals — various research groups around the world have found the freeware aida diabetes simulator of use as a way of generating large quantities of realistic blood glucose data for developing and testing out their own diabetes computing prototypes (e.g. for training artificial neural networks, or other decision support research prototypes). various published examples of this research approach can be found in the scientific literature. appendix: download surveys / evaluations the aida developers have undertaken a range of surveys and evaluations of usage of the aida diabetes simulator — to better understand who is downloading the program, and why. one initial study analysed data from 1,360 downloads of the aida software. the intended goals of the survey were: (i) to establish the feasibility of using the internet for auditing and surveying diabetes software users; (ii) to identify the proportion of people with diabetes and their relatives who are actually making use of the program; and (iii) to establish certain technical details about downloaders' computer setups to facilitate the distribution of upgrades to the software. 1,360 responses were received over an 8-month period (from november 1999 to july 2000). during the corresponding period 3,821 actual downloads of the software were independently logged at the website — giving a response rate to this survey of 35.6%. responses were received from participants in 67 countries — although over half of these (n=730, 54%) originated from the us and uk. 762 responses (56%) were received from people with diabetes and 184 (13.5%) from relatives of patients, with lesser numbers from doctors, students, diabetes educators, nurses, pharmacists, and other end users. useful technical information about computers and operating systems being used were also obtained. the initial study established the feasibility of using the internet to survey, at no real cost, a large number of medical software downloaders / users. in addition it yielded interesting data in terms of who are the main downloaders of the aida program, and has also provided technical (computer) information which aided the release of a freeware upgrade to the software. a second study audited 2,437 separate downloads of the aida program. the internet-based survey methodology was confirmed to be robust and reliable. over a 7.5-month period (from mid-july 2000 to early march 2001) 2,437 responses were received. during the corresponding period 4,100 actual downloads of the software were independently logged via the same route at the aida website — giving a response rate to this audit of 59.4%. responses were received from participants in 61 countries — although over half of these (n 5 1,533; 62.9%) originated from the united states and united kingdom. of these responses 1,361 (55.8%) were received from people with diabetes and 303 (12.4%) from relatives of patients, with fewer responses from doctors, diabetes educators, students, nurses, pharmacists, and other end users. this study has confirmed the feasibility of using the internet to survey, at no real cost, a large number of medical software downloaders / users. in addition, it yielded up-to-date and interesting data about who are the main downloaders of the aida program. a third study surveyed downloaders of a more recent release of the program (aida v4.3a). over a 1-year period (from march 2001 to february 2002) in total 3,864 responses were received. during the corresponding period some 8,578 actual downloads of the software were independently logged via the same route at the aida website, giving a response rate for this survey of 45%. responses were received from participants in 66 countries — over half of these (n=2,137; 55.3%) were from the united states and the united kingdom. there were 2,318 responses (60.0%) received from people with diabetes and 443 (11.5%) from relatives of patients, with fewer responses from doctors, students, diabetes educators, nurses, pharmacists, and other end users. the authors concluded that the study highlighted "considerable interest amongst patients and their relatives to learn more about balancing insulin and diet in diabetes, as well as possibly to get more involved in self-management of insulin dosages. more computer applications that can cater for this interest in diabetes patient self-care need to be developed and made available. the internet provides an ideal medium for the distribution of such educational tools".