Happy New Year from all of us at Physiopedia!! Our third newsletter highlights statistics, activity and projects from Physiopedia in 2009, it’s first official year, and also indicates our ideas for development and what we plan to do in the coming 2010. We hope that you enjoy reading and please forward this email onto others that you think may be interested to have a read. Thanks!
Annual Report
Following the official launch of Physiopedia in January last year, 2009 has exceeded all of our expectations and the project has been well received with a great deal of interest from all over the world. We have had over 300 author registrations from the physiotherapy and physical therapy commumity and built more than 200 articles with valued content. There have been nearly 40,000 visitors from 152 countries who have viewed more than 162,000 pages!!!
Not only have individuals been working in Physiopedia as part of their continued education and professional development, we have also run four educational projects where students, both undergraduate and postgraduate, have been working on assignments in Physiopedia as part of their formal education. This aspect of Physiopedia’s development has been the most innovative, drawing interest from educational professionals and institutions globally. With a truly international following Physiopedia has been referenced as a source of information in courses around the world, has been presented at an international physiotherapy conference and has also been published in a leading international physiotherapy journal.
We are looking forward to 2010 being another exciting year for Physiopedia. In February we start our first international collaborative project where students from Ireland and South Africa will work together on the same assignment within Physiopedia. As well we are planning to develop an open educational programme within Physiopedia where qualified physiotherapists and physical therapists can take part in free and collaborative professional development together. We hope to continue to develop further innovative projects for Physiopedia, present our work at more international conferences and also publish reports in leading educational and physiotherapy journals.
Educational project report
At the end of 2009 the Evidence in Motion residents developed 56 pages in Physiopedia as part of an assignment for their Capstone course. The work that these graduate students are producing in Physiopedia is a valuable contribution to the development of evidence based content within Physiopedia.
The plans for the first international collaborative project to take place within Physiopedia are well underway and the project, which is a collaborative effort between undergraduate students in ireland and South Africa, is due to start in February. We are most excited about this innovative proejct and will be keeping you updated with it’s progress on the blog and on Twitter (using the #ISP1 tag).
If you are an educator and would like to use Physiopedia as a space where your students can complete individual work or class projects, whether formal or informal, please read our Educators Guide for more information or contact us directly.
Development report
We continue to do all we can to make the user experience of Physiopedia as rich and rewarding as possible. This year we plan to be more dedicated to regularly updating the homepage with featured resources and contributors, will promote a monthly focus related to world affairs and will also continue to highlight any student or CPD projects that are ongoing. We will also be actively seeking more help with developing the site by creating specific voluntary roles:
- Clinical Directors – To help us specifically develop each clinical area we are looking for motivated experts from all specialities to become Clinical Directors. Their role will be to guide us in populating each clinical area with appropriate pages, help us create expert evidence based content and also promote the site within the clinical area. If you are interested in this role as a Clinical Director please do get in touch.
- Associate and national Directors – With such international interest we would also like to recruit volunteers to act as Physiopedia Directors in different areas of the world. We are specifically looking for a representative from each continent and may also consider national representatives. This will allow focused and localised promotion of the site and provide a local contact from which ever nation you reside. If you are interested in either of these Associate Director or National Director roles, please do get in touch.
Your suggestions please
Physiopedia continues to develop as an innovative project for the global physiotherapy community, but it cannot succeed without your valued contributions. Please help us to make positive progress with this project by letting us know what you think and providing us with ideas for future developments. Please let us know your thoughts and ideas via the contact us page on the Physiopedia website.
Thank You!
We have constantly been overwhelmed by the activity that has taken place in Physiopedia and the support that we have had for the project. We thank all of you who have become involved and contributed to the exciting development of this project, the worlds first open encyclopedia for the global physiotherapy community. We could not have done it without you!
Rachael Lowe
Physiopedia Founder