Editor: Pam Moule
Editorial
E‑learning is viewed as one way to support the development of healthcare professionals, offering flexible access to materials which enable practitioners to meet life‑long learning agendas. As a consequence a number of health professionals and health care institutions are looking to technology to provide necessary education, training materials and opportunities for personal and professional development and growth. The growing impetus to develop and embrace e‑learning in health care led to the convening of a mini‑track at the 6th European Conference on E‑Learning (ECEL) held in Denmark in 2007 and to invitations to support this Special Edition of the journal.
The papers present current international developments in the sector and capture the range of engagement in e‑learning from the instructivist provision of information through to engaging students in constructivist learning online. A range of health care professions is also represented in the discussions, as are differing education levels, from undergraduate to post graduate students and practitioners. Mohammed, Waddington and Donnan describe the use of an Internet broadband link to stream a ‘real time’ workshop to physiotherapists, whilst Burgess presents the use of e‑learning in a Nurse Prescribing Programme as part of a blended learning approach. Learner engagement through interactive online packages is described by Gilchrist and Lockyer et al. The paper by Lockyer et al additionally explores issues of transferring e‑learning into practice and the potential effects on patient care, a much under‑researched area. Pulman presents the benefits and limitations of project Virtual Europe, case scenarios that encourage learners to construct their learning through evaluating different approaches to health care across Europe. The final paper by Courtney focuses on the use of e‑learning by lecturing staff in health care. The use of an online Community of Practice to support lecturers developing Learning Objects (LOs) is considered and discussions developed to consider the role of LOs in practice education.
The papers present current international developments in the sector and capture the range of engagement in e‑learning from the instructivist provision of information through to engaging students in constructivist learning online. A range of health care professions is also represented in the discussions, as are differing education levels, from undergraduate to post graduate students and practitioners. Mohammed, Waddington and Donnan describe the use of an Internet broadband link to stream a ‘real time’ workshop to physiotherapists, whilst Burgess presents the use of e‑learning in a Nurse Prescribing Programme as part of a blended learning approach. Learner engagement through interactive online packages is described by Gilchrist and Lockyer et al. The paper by Lockyer et al additionally explores issues of transferring e‑learning into practice and the potential effects on patient care, a much under‑researched area. Pulman presents the benefits and limitations of project Virtual Europe, case scenarios that encourage learners to construct their learning through evaluating different approaches to health care across Europe. The final paper by Courtney focuses on the use of e‑learning by lecturing staff in health care. The use of an online Community of Practice to support lecturers developing Learning Objects (LOs) is considered and discussions developed to consider the role of LOs in practice education.
Keywords: Box and whisker plot, Boxplots, cancer care, clinical education, Communities of Practice, community development support, Designated Medical Practitioner, educators, e-learning, evaluation, face-to-face, health education, interactions, intercultural, international, internet broadband, Interprofessional learning, interprofessional Learning Objects, Interprofessional Practice, Learning Objects, nurse prescribing, nursing education, qualitative research, real-time, Reified Objects, Reusable learning object, simulated community, telemedicine, videoconferencing, Virtual Europe, workplace learning
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Abstract
In order to become a UK Nurse Prescriber, a First Level Registered Nurse must undergo an approved University based educational programme, which consists of theory, and a period of practice supervised by doctors. The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) requires nurses undertaking this programme to have some formal university attendance and to be assessed in practice. Successful students are recorded on the national NMC register. Since October 2004, the University of Winchester has used blended learning incorporating e‑learning for the delivery of the Nurse Prescribing Programme using online material developed by Emap Publishing in conjunction with the University of Stirling. This paper discusses the effectiveness of the programme and the evaluation of the initial six cohorts students).
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This paper gives an account of an attempt by an educational developer to support and strengthen an emergent Community of Practice (CoP) (Wenger 1998a). This community consists of members of staff associated in different capacities with the Centre for Interprofessional e‑Learning (CIPeL), a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), based at Coventry University and Sheffield Hallam University. The support is specifically targeting CIPeL Secondees who are recruited to CIPeL on a part‑time basis, for the purpose of creating interprofessional Learning Objects (LOs). While Secondees receive individual support, there is little formal contact between Secondees. An online CIPeL Community site was created, in order to provide a space where CIPeL members could meet virtually and share problems and experiences relating to the construction of LOs. Initially, the key question appeared to be how online participation by members of the community could be encouraged. Using Wenger's (1998a) CoP theory of learning, and after exploring how the Community site was being used, the focus of attention shifts to an exploration of reified objects and the role they play in guiding practice, which in this case relates to the creation and use of interprofessional LOs. This in turns leads to the difficult question of how relevant reified objects may be identified and built, and it is advocated that existing CIPeL LOs should be exploited as reified objects for the purpose of guiding the construction of new LOs. It is felt that invoking constructs from Wenger's (1998a) CoP theory of learning has resulted in a more detailed picture of the nature of the challenges involved in moving from an emergent CoP to more established practice. The approach has simultaneously helped clarify how support for an emergent CoP might be more effectively focused. As a final point, it is suggested that it may be fruitful to explore parallels between CIPeL as an emergent CoP and interprofessional practice (IPP) itself, based on the view that IPP is also an emergent practice.
Keywords: Communities of practice, learning objects, interprofessional learning objects, Interprofessional Practice, community development support, Reified Objects
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Although our health professional students have some experience of simple charts, such as pie and bar, and some intuition of histograms, they do not appear to have much knowledge or understanding about box and whisker plots and their relation to the data they are describing or compared to histograms. The boxplot is a versatile charting tool, useful for presenting data from surveys and any other projects, where a reasonable quantity of data has been collected. An opportunity arose to create a reusable learning object (RLO) to describe, explore, and interpret boxplots, especially in relation to their data and summary statistics. Examples included interprofessional learning, as this was the main remit of the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, from which funding was obtained. The RLO is aimed at both undergraduate and post‑graduate HP students, who would be able to use the resource flexibly, to augment their limited exposure to statistical techniques, and add to their appreciation of IP learning and working. The RLO includes animation and opportunities for students to interact with the resource. Existing, available 'real' data, collected as part of research projects concerning (IP) learning, as well as generated data, is used as illustrative material. This paper explores some of the issues raised during the creation of the RLO, and presents limited feedback from users. Issues raised include the working of the project team, delivery platform, copyright and intellectual property rights and software incompatibilities. To date, feedback from colleagues and students has been very positive and has encouraged further improvements. The creation of this RLO has been a longer and more time‑consuming experience than anticipated, and has highlighted the importance of a team approach, with constant reviewing. It will be interesting to see how the RLO will be used, and usage will be evaluated in the future.
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Lesley Lockyer, Pam Moule, Deirdre McGuigan
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This paper presents qualitative research completed in two groups of hospitals in the United Kingdom, as part of a larger mixed methods study. It involved eight qualified nurses caring for patients with gastro‑intestinal cancer in general surgical wards. It explored the nurses' experiences of using an online programme and their perceptions of the impact of learning on patient care delivery. The nurses volunteered to complete an online open source package www.cancernursing.org. and meet for focus group discussions and interviews following a lapse of six weeks. Two of the participants experienced difficulties completing the package and following changes to the previously attained ethical approval, a focus group was conducted with these staff. Analysis of the transcripts identified a number of issues for those considering the adoption of such modes of delivery within healthcare. Nurses referred to a lack of information technology skills and competence in computer use, access issues, organizational barriers and lack of protected study time. In spite of difficulties they gave examples of how their learning had impacted on patient care.
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Y.Q. Mohammed, G. Waddington, P. Donnan
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The main objective of this pilot research project was to determine whether the use of an internet broadband link to stream physiotherapy clinical education workshop proceedings in "real‑time" is of equivalent educational value to the traditional face‑to‑face experience. This project looked at the benefits of using the above technology as an educational tool and its impact on educators only, it did not investigate possible related factors such as the cost of employing this technology nor the technicalities of setting up the proposed technology as these objectives were beyond the scope of the study. In 2006 three physiotherapy educators' workshops were selected for streaming at the University of Canberra. Two groups of educators attended the workshops at geographically separate venues, face‑to‑face (on‑site) and real‑time internet streaming (off‑site). Group one (on‑site) attended face‑to‑face lectures at the Canberra Hospital ACT Australia; lectures were streamed using a standard personal computer and digital camera to group two (off‑site) at the University of Canberra and Calvary Hospital ACT. At the end of the workshops all participants completed the questionnaire survey. Obtained results were analyzed using t‑tests. No significant difference was found between the participants' assessment of the educational value derived from either off or on‑site attendance at the workshop.
Keywords: face-to-face, real-time, educators, clinical education, interactions internet broadband, telemedicine, videoconferencing
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On the Road to Virtual Europe — Redux
pp297‑304
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Virtual Europe is a web‑based European community from which health education scenarios may be accessed for learning and teaching purposes. Featuring a map giving access to country specific resources, it is populated with different cultural case studies allowing contrasts between cultures to be examined. For example, a student could evaluate the differences between UK, Belgium and Dutch approaches to the care of a patient in a particular situation. The project is initially funded by the Consortium of Institutes of Higher Education in Health and Rehabilitation In Europe (Cohehre). This paper offers a unique view on the benefits and limitations surrounding the development and implementation of a European health based virtual community. How will it facilitate the elimination of barriers for international mobility of students and staff? How easy is it to integrate into differing European health curricula? How does it compare to the experiences offered by new virtual environments? During the first year, the pilot version of Virtual Europe was created incorporating cardiac and burns case studies. During the second year of the project, the aim is to refine the pilot and incorporate further case studies. During the third year of the project, Virtual Europe will be utilised within partner institutions as a learning and teaching tool. The project team are working to evaluate the user‑friendliness of the system on an on‑going basis encouraging feedback from the students and academics that will use it. Tutorials will be used to evaluate how successfully lecturers are able to utilise and integrate it within their curriculum. Evaluation will be iterative and formative, with feedback used to identify potential changes that will be incorporated into subsequent pilots, group sessions and system enhancements. The paper presents a cogent and stimulating analysis of an e‑Learning virtual health education project which is interprofessional in outlook; interdisciplinary in approach; intercultural in background; interactive in design and international in scope.
Keywords: interprofessional, simulated community, health education, Virtual Europe, intercultural, international
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