I have been asked to make a short visit to the Aga Khan university in Pakistan as a result of an online friendship I have developed with Associate Professor Rafat Jan over the last 2-3 years. Rafat and I have been talking about midwifery education for some time and she has asked me to do some work with her as she develops an online midwifery course.
Web resource
One of the main objectives of my visit would be to start collecting and collating free online resources that Rafat could use in her teaching (or any midwifery educator for that matter).
Wikieducator
I think the best place to start this work is in Wikieducator. It isn't necessarily the easiest online platform to use for newbies, but it has improved since the inception of rich text editing. What I think will be useful for this work is the strong community that uses Wikieducator, including a large number of educators who live in less privileged countries.
I started to set up a template in Wikieducator but that is as far as I have got at this stage.
Stock take
What I would like to know is if there is a website or place where this is happening already - there's no point in re-inventing the wheel. I know Carolyn McIntosh started to do this in Wikieducator so it may be that all I need to do is build on her work.
There is also a website called "Health Services Online" which is an appears to be an excellent repository for health information. However, it does not focus on midwifery and it contains all sorts of information, not just education resources.
Funding
I am thinking that this project would benefit from funding so that time can be used for development of the website, searching for resources, development of resources if a gap is identified (and to make resouces for the Pakistan context) and to embed a research strategy.
How you can help
If you know of any place where free online midwifery resources are being collated for education please let me know. And I would also like to hear about any resources that you feel would be appropriate for midwifery education that I can add to the list I am making.
4 comments:
Hi Sarah,
Brilliant project -- I tweaked the structure and navigation a little to help manage the structure of the project in the as it grows -- and this project will scale :-)
Rich text editing has helped a lot in getting newbies started. WE can certainly assist in helpin build wiki capability for your international midwife community. Don't forget that the OER Foundation / WikiEducator runs free training workshops every month :-) Feel free to gift the gift of knowledge and invite midwives to register for a basic wiki skills course. The next course starts on 21 July http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C41/About .
Given the philanthropic nature of this project -- very often institutions would consider releasing closed materials under a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license. Certainly worth the effort to try an clear copyright.
Do have a chat with us at the OER Foundation --- I have a few ideas about how to potentially generate funding for a project like this.
Good one -- and Go All-Whites go :-)
checkout studentmidwife.net
Thanks anonymous...great idea :)
Hi Wayne, I got as far as setting up the page but clearly it needs a lot of work but will have to wait for a couple of weeks - a work in progress.
Thanks for idea about funding. This project has been in my head for years but has the potential to grow into a very time-consuming one. Funding would make life a lot easier and is worth pursuing I think.
So glad to see you are thinking about doing something with Wikieducator midwifery resources. I did my best but have always been a bit disappointed that no one else came on board to help organise it and contribute. Hope you have better luck, I am sure you will do something really good.
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