You may have noticed that we’ve been a bit quiet over the recent holiday period, we’ve been taking some time out to refresh and re-energise. It has been a great time to reflect on the past year and plan for the new year.
2013 has been an amazing year for Physiopedia, we established our formal volunteers program and ran the first ever open online course for the physiotherapy and physical therapy profession. But we didn’t stop there. All year long, our volunteers and students have been contributing in so many fantastic and unexpected ways that it’s been hard to wrap our brains around all the activity. So here’s my attempt at collecting and distilling everything here.
In 2013 we:
- Partnered with the WCPT so that in collaboration we can with our global organisation to make a contribution to our profession and to global health.
- Formally registered as a non-profit organisation with a global purpose.
- In collaboration with Michael Rowe from the University of Western Cape we ran the worlds first open online course for the physiotherapy and physical therapy profession.
- Conducted initial research on the impact of some of the professional ethics course, the results of which we hope will be published some time this year.
- Started our formal volunteer program which provides a guided learning experience and subsequent role allocation with ongoing support.
- Began issuing certification and open badges for learning and professional development activities that take place in Physiopedia. These badges have been recognised by the Mozilla Open Badges initiative.
- Ran 13 educational projects in collaboration with universities, clinics and professional organisations to provide learning opportunities for their students, staff and members.
- Continued our partnerships with a number of physiotherapy and physical therapy related businesses. We are working closer with these partners to make positive contributions to our profession.
- Gave Physiospot a facelift and provided opportunities for community contributions with our Voices, Partners, Courses and Jobs categories.
- Attended the APTA and CSP conferences where we were able to meet with partners and collaborators, old friends and new. Despite the amazing way that technology can bring us together it’s always good to meet face to face!
- With growing visitors numbers (currently around 150,000 unique visitors from over 200 countries per month) the demands on our web servers increased so we moved our website hosting into the cloud.
- Adopted the new creative commons license. Our content is and always will remain open and accessible for all to view.
- Had the opportunity to explore the profession in South Africa which has initiated ideas for how we might be able to contribute to the development of the profession in the rest of Africa.
In 2014, we will:
- Run more open online courses in collaboration with experts around the world.
- Develop more continued learning and professional development opportunities through the Physiopedia platform.
- Secure continued learning and professional development credit for our courses and other learning opportunities.
- Develop partnerships that contribute to our mission.
- Launch our clinic, university and professional organisation partnerships.
- Expand professional development and learning opportunities in less resourced areas of the world.
- Action our peer review strategy. If you would like to be a peer reviewer or topic expert please let us know!
- Continue to work with our amazing team of volunteers to provide a continually developing rich resource for the physiotherapy and physical therapy profession.
- Have some Physiopedia Awards!
- Be attending CSM in Las Vegas in February, see you there!!
I could go on but I’ll stop there or I’ll be giving myself too much work!!!
The biggest thing you should note about Physiopedia is that it is no longer just a professional resource. It is a global community and movement of volunteers developing content and running online courses, all with the purpose of developing the physiotherapy and physical therapy profession. Helping people to learn, professionally develop and do what they already do better with the aid of open resources and tools.
If you would like to join us in our endeavours to provide free education opportunities to the global physiotherapy and physical therapy profession, get in touch!
On behalf of the Physiopedia team – directors, volunteers, advisors and partners – we wish you a happy and healthy 2014!