Posted by Rachael Lowe on February 7, 2011 · Leave a Comment
Hello and welcome to the first Physiopedia newsletter of the New Year. 2010 was a great year for Physiopedia and this year we will be focusing on really helping Physiopedia to be THE great physiotherapy and physical therapy resource that the community would like it to become…..
PHYSIOPEDIA IS REALLY TAKING OFF…
Physiopedia really took off last year, with over half a million visits by 100,000 people from 177 countries we are really beginning to consider that the Physiopedia project has serious potential to become THE physiotherapy and physical therapy resource for out profession. We now have over 800 pages, over 1000 registered editors and are continuing to support various formal educational projects from all over the world.
We can already consider this project a success as it has been successful in many of the ways that other community wikis fail, so this year we will put some muscle into the project and try to implement some of the plans that have been mulling over in the back of our minds for a while now. Look out for new clinical networks, online CE and CPD courses and more involvement from organisations from our physiotherapy and physical therapy community.
If you would like to get involved, join the team or deliver your courses through Physiopedia please get in touch by emailing Rachael.
JOIN US AT CSM IN NEW ORLEANS
It’s that time of year again for the largest Physical Therapy conference in the USA. The APTA’s Combined Sections Meeting will take place next week in New Orleans. Rachael Lowe, Elainne Lonnemann and Eric Robertson will be presenting a report on many of the educational projects that took place within Physiopedia last year. So why not go along and join them for their presentation:
Connecting the Classroom and Clinic: Use of an International Collaborative Classroom Wiki – Saturday, February 12 at 1:00pm
New at CSM this year is TechnoPalooza. TechnoPalooza (Booth #437), is a new event designed for CSM attendees to exchange ideas about how interactive technology is shaping the profession. The 5 pavilions within TechnoPalooza include the clinic, the home, education, gaming, and the office/mobile app. When ever she gets a free moment Rachael Lowe will be demonstrating Physiopedia down at the TechnoPalooza booth, so if you’d like to meet Rachael or have a tour around Physiopedia have a look out for her there!
If you’re unable to attend CSM this year Rachael will also be reporting LIVE from CSM via Physiospot. The reporting will start when Rachael arrives at CSM on Thursday morning and from the dedicated page on Physiospot you can keep up with all that is going on (from Rachael’s experience anyway!) and even interact with questions and conversation.
View the event LIVE online here
THINGS TO DO IN PHYSIOPEDIA
Have you contributed yet? Everyone has something to contribute to this community resource and like our students do when they contribute to Physiopedia as part of educational assignments, you too can feel good that you have been part of creating the greatest physiotherapy and physical therapy resource.
Our clients are the same the world over, they suffer with the same conditions, they need rehab following the same procedures, we all use the same interventions…. Why don’t we collaborate internationally to produce the documents we need. It will give us more time for patient care! It’s not all about wring articles on conditions, do you have a rehabilitation protocol, clinical guidelines or patient guides that you can share. Go to the Resources section to add them.
PUBLISH YOUR RESEARCH IN PHYSIOPEDIA
Wouldn’t we all like it if research was available to us for free? Physiopedia now offers an opportunity for you to publish your research and make this a reality. The open and collaborative nature of Physiopedia enables you to publish your own research in an easy and accessible way. This is a great way of publicising student work, supporting new researchers and bridging the gap between completing research and publication. Once published it can then be peer reviewed and validated by the community. We are happy for you to publish your original research in Physiopedia, include a summary of your research prior to publication in a peer reviewed journal or publish your student dissertation. Go to the research section to find out more.
DO YOU HAVE A COURSE OR PRESENTATION THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO DELIVER ONLINE?
Look no further! This year Physiopedia is planning to add a virtual learning environment where by course providers and presenters will be able to sell their evidence-based courses and presentations online. The team at Physiopedia has all the expertise to make this happen all you need to do is provide them with your content and wait for the returns to come in. If you are interested in this opportunity please email Rachael to discuss the details.
CONNECT WITH PHYSIOPEDIA VIA SOCIAL MEDIA
If you would like to regularly keep up to date with all that is going on in Physiopedia or would like to connect with us, it is easy to do. Choose your preferred social media application from those below, sign up to our RSS feed, ‘like’ our Facebook page, follow us on Twiiter or join the LinkedIn group to get connected and join the conversation!
That’s all for now, stay in touch and we look forward hearing from you and meeting with you in the near future!
The Physiopedia Team
With thanks to our major sponsor:
Posted by Rachael Lowe on October 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment
FUN IN BOSTON PT2010
In June I was in Boston for the Annual Conference and Exposition of the APTA. It was the first time that I had visited the USA in relation to my work as a physiotherapist, and it was a great experience. It was great to meet up with, for the first time, so many people that have been involved in developing Physiopedia. Our presentation on wikis and Physiopedia was fun and even the editing demonstration went well with no technical hitches whilst we all had a go at editing some content together.
See the presentation from PT2010…
JOIN ME AT CSP CONGRESS
Next I’ll be presenting Physiopedia at CSP Congress in October. The focus will be on using Physiopedia in Education and CPD but anyone interested in finding out more about Physiopedia will find this session useful. So if your around for that, I’ll see you there!!
See the Abstract for CSP Congress…
PROJECTS
As I’m writing this news update we have three new student projects in Physiopedia. Elaine Lonneman’s students at the University of St. Augustine in St. Augustine Florida are currently completing the project Worldwide Physical Therapy Practice: a focus on Primary Care Physical Therapy, Eric Robertson’s students at Texas State University in the Doctor of Physical Therapy Program are updating and creating pages as part of their Orthopaedic curriculum, and Peter Vaes’s 2nd and 3rd year students of the ‘Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy’ program of the ‘Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium are contributing content to Physiopedia to improve their academic skills for literature use.
Our first continuing education project has been designed the clinical educators affiliated with the Physical Therapy Program at Bellarmine University currently completing the project Clinical Case Presentations Continuing Education Opportunity for Physical Therapists with Dr. Elaine Lonnemann.
We also have Bhanu Ramaswamy working on the AGILE project creating a structured and evidence based Older People section of Physiopedia under the sub-headings: Policy, Physiology and Physiotherapy. The project eventually aims to involve IPTOP, the International Association of Physical Therapists working with Older People, and the wider international community.
See a list of our current projects here…
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
We are always looking for new ways to develop the Physiopedia resource that will be beneficial to individuals and to the profession. The ideas that we have and are mulling over include clinical networks, a CPD programme, a mentoring scheme, opportunities for in-service training and a journal club. However as a collaborative site we would like to include you, our users, in the development of this resource and these ideas, and invite you to contribute to Physiopedia’s future.
Read more about these ideas and contribute to Physiopedia’s future…
That’s all for now. Please stay in touch and we look forward to seeing or hearing from you in the near future!
Best wishes until next time,
Rachael Lowe
Physiopedia Founder
Posted by Rachael Lowe on June 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Hello Physiopedia fans and welcome to our summer newsletter which brings you all the Physiopedia news and developments from the first half of 2010!
WE’VE GONE SOCIAL!
Physiopedia has finally had a social face lift. This is the first part of a scheme to make Physiopedia a social experience where our users will be able to connect with us and with each other. We have added icons to the top of the sidebar to enable you to quickly sign up for email alerts and RSS feeds and also to connect with us in Twitter and Facebook. At the top of each page on the right we have added a button that allows you to easily save the current page as a bookmark or to share it with your friends via various applications, including Facebook and Twitter. We are currently also looking into developing a social networking side to Physiopedia which will enable us to create clinical networks and interest groups, but in the mean time we hope you find these recent additions useful.
PUBLISH RESEARCH IN PHYSIOPEDIA
The open and collaborative nature of Physiopedia enables any registered user of physiopedia to edit pages and with this new feature to also publish their own research. This will allow physiotherapists and physical therapists, who otherwise might not have the opportunity, to publish their work for all to see. Once published in Physiopedia the research will be open for peer review by the Physiopedia community.
We are happy to publish your original research, summaries of research prior to publication in a peer reviewed journals or to publish your student dissertation. We welcome all types of research including randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and case studies This is a great way of publicising student work, supporting new researchers and bridging the gap between completing research and publication.
Read More…
BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY STUDENT PROJECT
Students from Bellarmine University have completed their recent project – Pathophysiology of Complex Patients Problems. I was thoroughly impressed with this ambitious project and am grateful to all those who were involved for their efforts and contributions to the site. The articles that the students created are of very high quality and it is obvious that they have all worked really hard. Now that the project is complete we will soon be opening up their articles and networking them into the main site content.
Take a look at this project…
JOINING FORCES WITH AGILE
The AGILE Project is a collaborative effort by members of AGILE, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy Clinical Interest Group of Physiotherapists working with Older People. Led by Bhanu Ramaswamy, those involved in the project will be working on creating a structured and evidence based Older People section of Physiopedia under the sub-headings: Policy, Physiology and Physiotherapy. The project eventually aims to involve IPTOP, the International Association of Physical Therapists working with Older People, and the wider international community.
Watch this page for further details!!
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
We are always looking for new ways to develop the Physiopedia resource that will be beneficial to individuals and to the profession. The ideas that we have and are mulling over include clinical networks, a CPD programme, a mentoring scheme, opportunities for in-service training and a journal club. However as a collaborative site we would like to include you, our users, in the development of this resource and these ideas, and invite you to contribute to Physiopedia’s future.
Read more about these ideas and contribute to Physiopedia’s future…
JOIN US IN BOSTON FOR PT2010
PT 2010, the Annual Conference and Exposition of APTA, is only a couple of weeks away now. On Saturday 19th June Eric and I will be talking all about wikis and giving a guided tour and editing demonstration of Physiopedia. Why don’t you come along to join in the fun!!
OR JOIN ME AT CSP CONGRESS
That’s all for now. Please stay in touch and we look forward to seeing or hearing from you in the near future!
Best wishes until next time,
I’ll also be presenting Physiopedia at CSP Congress again this year. The focus will be on using Physiopedia in Education but anyone interested in finding out more about Physiopedia will find this session useful. So if your around for that, I’ll see you there!!
That’s all for now. Please stay in touch and we look forward to seeing or hearing from you in the near future!
Best wishes until next time,
Rachael Lowe
Physiopedia Founder
Posted by Rachael Lowe on January 21, 2010 · Leave a Comment
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:
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
Posted by Rachael Lowe on May 28, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Hello from Physiopedia
Hello everyone and thank you for your continued support. To all our newly registered users, welcome to Physiopedia, thank you for joining us and taking an interest in this global physiotherapy/physical therapy project.
News
Our biggest news recently is the start of the new Physiopedia Blog. We thought it was about time to provide a place for people to read about developments and happenings at Physiopedia. Initially we have imported all the previous posts that I have written about Physiopedia on my blog but from now on we will report on what is currently going on at Physiopedia. Read more here…
Development report
We are trying to do all we can to make the user experience of Physiopedia as easy as possible. With this in mind we recently tidied up the navigation menu in the sidebar. You now have direct links to all the main areas of Physiopedia such as the
Articles,
Categories and
Resources. We are hoping to add some drop down menus soon to create an even more seamless navigation system.
This week we have added RSS feeds based on the title of the page to all Article pages that have content. The feeds come direct from PubMed and will be updated every time new related research is added to PubMed. A great way to keep up-to-date with very specific topics!
We are very grateful to EIM and Regis University for the recent addition of the Presentations resource. This resource showcases high quality evidence-based lectures in an open-access environment. These are lectures that have been created, submitted through a peer-review process, and are now shared with Physiopedia. We will add more presentations as we receive them, so add this page to your watch list, or just keep checking back!
Educational project report
The recent RCSI student project in Physiopedia was a great success with very positive feedback from the students. I am very excited to have been given the opportunity to present the feedback gathered from this project at CSP Congress in October in Liverpool, so if you are keen to hear more come and see me there!
We now have two new student projects running in Physiopedia. Students from Eric Robertson’s spine course at the Medical College of Georgia will be creating new pages related to their studies and Evidence in Motion Residents will be completing an assignment and making pages in Physiopedia as part of the capstone course in their residency training. I am very much looking forward to supporting these projects.
If you are an educator and would like to use Physiopedia as a space where your students can complete individual work or class projects please have a read of our Educator Guide for more information or contact me directly by email to discuss this opportunity.
Top Tips
The Physiopedia Blog has a category called Top Tips. Here we will write short posts with hints and tips to help you when using Physiopedia. So if you are wondering how to get started using Physiopedia have a look at our recent posts on getting started and also have a read of the post about increasing your profile. I’ll try and keep these posting regular hints and tips but if you have any requests just let me know.
Your suggestions please
Physiopedia is still and a new and developing project we would very much welcome and encourage you to make suggestions on how we could improve Physiopedia. Can we make it easier for you to contribute content in any way? Are there any other pages/facilities/functions that you would like us to add? Please let us know your thoughts and ideas. You can do this via the contact us page or by making a comment below.
Best wishes and happy editing
Rachael Lowe
« Previous Page — Next Page »
