CanadiEM: Accessing a Virtual Community of Practice to Create a Canadian National Medical Education Institution

Abstract

Background: The rise of free open-access medical education (FOAM) has led to a wide range of online resources in emergency medicine. Canadian physicians have been active contributors to FOAM.Objectives: We aimed to create a virtual community of practice that would serve as a national platform for collaboration, learning, and knowledge dissemination.Methods: CanadiEM was formed in 2016 from the merger of two Canadian websites and a podcast. Using a community-of-practice model, we introduced two training programs to support junior community members in becoming core editorial team members and employed asynchronous Web technologies to facilitate collaboration. We also introduced a coached peer review process and formed strategic alliances that aim to ensure a high quality of publication.Results: CanadiEM has become a portal for readers to access a broad range of FOAM content. The website has published 782 articles. Of these, 71 have undergone a coached peer review process. The website has received over 2.5 million page views from 217 countries, and the associated CRACKCast podcast has been downloaded over 750,000 times.Conclusions: CanadiEM has succeeded in building a national multi-interface dissemination network that fosters collaboration and knowledge sharing in emergency medicine while fostering junior digital scholars. The construction of a community of practice has been facilitated by quality assurance, training programs, and the use of asynchronous Web technologies. Ongoing challenges in sustainability include a volunteer workforce with high turnover.

Social media in knowledge translation and education for physicians and trainees: a scoping review

“…conferences or publications). Enabled by networks such as those that have sprung up around FOAM, virtual communities of practice can enable members to more quickly share common knowledge [57,58]. There are growing numbers of online communities of practice, which not only allow, but encourage educators to increase peer visibility and recognition.…”

“…There are growing numbers of online communities of practice, which not only allow, but encourage educators to increase peer visibility and recognition. They can also be harnessed to amplify messages, allowing for a faster dissemination of work, theoretically leading to increased immediate impact [57]. Because of the growth of virtual communities of practice [4,5,59,60] which facilitate innovative knowledge translation, new educational approaches, and dissemination practices, the best practices for using social media to translate new knowledge to other healthcare professionals is a moving target.…”

Redesigning continuing professional development: Harnessing design thinking to go from needs assessment to mandate

“…The advent of social media (including the Free Open Access Medical (FOAM) education movement [2,3]) has led to a drastic change in the way people access information via continuous access evidence updates (e.g. on blogs and in podcasts), threatening the traditional lecture-based conferenc-ing models of continuing education in the health professions [1,[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. Academically, new and existing faculty members are constantly being asked to do more with less.…”

Thinking Critically About Appraising FOAM

“…Not surprisingly, many skeptics emerged, doubting the veracity of a field where textbooks had formerly dominated with historical precedent but no evidence . Blogs then evolved to these response calls for increasing rigor by adapting traditional structures including peer review, editorial boards, and online journal clubs …”

“…Several groups have begun using modified versions of classic curriculum development techniques (e.g., needs assessments) and adapting them for the online sphere . Some groups, like the CRACKcast podcast affiliated with the CanadiEM group, are even mapping their entire podcast to major emergency medicine textbooks. Naturally, a rhizomatic and naturally evolving movement like #FOAMed was never going to start out being programmatic.…”