An online academic writing and publishing skills course: Help Syrians find their voice

Abstract

Purpose: A group of Arab-American physicians and researchers in the United States organized a blended online course in academic writing and publishing in medicine targeting medical students and physicians in war-torn Syria. This was an effort to address one of the reasons behind the poor quantity and quality of scientific research papers in Syria and the Arab region. In this paper, we report on the design, conduct, and outcome of this course and attempt to evaluate its effectiveness. Methods: The educational intervention was a 2-month blended online course. We administered a questionnaire to assess satisfaction and self-reported improvement in knowledge, confidence, and skills of academic writing and publishing. Results: The course succeeded in reaching more than 2588 physicians and medical students from the region; 159 of them completed most of the course. Eighty-three percent of the participants felt that they were confident enough to write an academic paper after the course and 95% felt the learning objectives were achieved with an average student satisfaction of 8.4 out of 10. Conclusion: Physicians in Syria and neighboring countries are in need of training to become an active part of the global scientific community and to document and communicate the crisis their countries are going through from a medical perspective. Low-cost online educational initiatives help respond, at least partially, to those needs.

Impact of armed conflict on health professionals’ education and training in Syria: a systematic review

“…In the GCAs, innovation was a key theme which was mainly led by students and trainees. This included trialling small scale initiatives in teletraining, peer-led teaching and training the trainers, which were focused on topics such as EBM and academic writing and BLS courses27 28 36–38 In addition to calls from the academic staff for community-based learning,39 conflict-focused curriculum in mental health40–42 and trials of bilingual teaching approaches in medical schools 43–45…”

Analyzing the efficacy of a decade-long endeavor: extracurricular medical research training amidst the turmoil of Syria

“…In Syrian, they were suggested as an attainable alternative to address the shortcomings of the research curriculum (10,16). Previous reports assessing individual interventions that targeted research skills including EBM and academic writing in Syria highlighted the knowledge-enhancing effects of their workshops (11,13,14,26), or at least improvement limited to attendees' confidence (27), or perceived skills (15). Additionally, a recent crosssectional study on Syrian residents suggested that attending more trainings on medical research correlates with better practices of EBM (28).…”

“…The extracurricular interventions targeting medical research paucity in Syria have proven successful in helping Syrian early-career medical researchers to find their voice (27). Regardless of the dreadful circumstances of war, these workshops increased research attitudes, knowledge, skills, and productivity, and facilitated engagement in the research community.…”

Medical Research Conduct and Publication during Higher Education in Syria: Attitudes, Barriers, Practices, and Possible Solutions

“…29 Online workshops can also provide a more affordable, accessible, and flexible option that still leads to comparable outcomes. 14 30 31 32 33 These educational events should be recorded and published afterward for self-paced learning, which was deemed highly effective, and should cover all aspects of research methodology, academic writing, and biomedical statistics, as training was lacking overall.…”