Featured in January 2012
Each month we feature some our most valued contributions to Physiopedia in the preceding months. We are very grateful to all these contributors in January 2012.
Featured Project
Current and Emerging Roles in Physiotherapy Practice
This project from Queen Margaret University in Scotland aims to to prepare learners for emerging physiotherapy roles in response to changing healthcare needs.
Featured Contributor
Erin Locati
Erin is our featured contributor for the month for making the most edits over the last three months. Thanks Erin!
Featured Article
Ibadan Knee/Hip Osteoarthritis Outcome Measure (IKHOAM)
This month we wanted to feature this Nigerean outcome measure that was published byAdesola Odole. It’s a great example of adaptation by developing countries.
Featured Sponsor
Primal Pictures
Thanks to Primal Pictures for becoming a Silver Sponsor and also for donating some of their amazing images for us to use in Physiopedia.
Looking Forward to 2012.
Since launching in January 2009 Physiopedia has moved from strength to strength. In only three years we have created nearly 1000 articles through nearly 50,000 edits, and have had 2.7 million visits!! Your contributions and engagement grew so much that when the site went down in December the only resolution was to move it to a virtual private server and set up a scalable hosting service that will cope with what ever the future might bring. When we started out on this journey we never really envisaged that Physiopedia would achieve these participation numbers. You have proven us wrong! Physiopedia has proven itself to be a valued and credible resource for the physiotherapy community and beyond. In response to this we have committed to making Physiopedia become the great resource that it has the potential to be and we only hope that it will continue to evolve to achieve it’s mission of providing universal access to physiotherapy knowledge.
Due to the voluntary efforts of all those involved in the management of Physiopedia development can be a bit stop and start, however we are looking forward to advancing Physiopedia in 2012. There are many things that we have on our ever expanding ‘To Do List’ and accomplishing them all will be no mean feat! However, with some hard work and with your help we hope to achieve as much as we can this year. For starters with the help of our technical director, Tony Lowe, we will be embracing mobile technolog and hope to have our web apps and smartphone tools developed this year. You can also look out for e-learning opportunities, further collaborations with educational institutions around the world and additional partnerships with more members of our community. If the future of Physiopedia excites you and you would like to get involved, please do not hesitate to get in touch, I, Rachael, will be very pleased to discuss specific opportunities that suit you or your organisation.
New Project from the Physiotherapy Pain Association
The Physiotherapy Pain Association (PPA) is the Professional Network of the UK`s Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and part of its recently formed NeuroMusculoskeletal Alliance. They are actively forging working relationships with the North British Pain Association (NBPA), The British Pain Society and the World Congress of Physical Therapy (WCPT). We are pleased to announce that they are collaborating with Physiopedia to supervise and contribute to the development of the Physiopedia Pain section. Martin Hey, Chair of the PPA says that they “intend to populate the site with practical, credible and thought-provoking information on the science of pain, its assessment and management.” The PPA are very much hoping that you will watch this space over the coming months and beyond and ultimately find it a useful point of reference…..and if you do, we hope you will guide your colleagues towards it!
See the PPA Project page to read more…
Have we been visited by all the countries in the world?
In our previous reports of countries that we have been visited by, we have been working from the numbers from this website. This was perhaps a bad assessment of the quality of information that a website provides by me, not something that I advocate in these days of the necessity to scrutinise any information that you find on the web. However, having now looked at the United Nations list of members we realise that they have only 193 members listed. So with our google analytics telling us that we have been visited by 193 countries does this mean that we have been visited by all the countries in the world!? If we have really done it, that’s amazing!!
The strengthening case for open access publishing
This problem has been combatted recently at the prestigious US academic institution, Princeton University. Explained on their news site, they will prevent researchers from giving the copyright of scholarly articles to journal publishers, except in certain cases where a waiver may be granted. The new rule is part of an Open Access policy aimed at broadening the reach of their scholarly work and encouraging publishers to adjust standard contracts that commonly require exclusive copyright as a condition of publication.
We have been advocates for open access publishing since even before our launch in 2008, which you can read about here. We offer an open access resource for the physiotherapy profession and also offer the opportunity to publish your research in an open environment. Why? Well Steve Wheeler does a great explanation in support of this in his recent blog post, the case for open publishing. He concludes by saying “what open access does mean is larger readerships for the published research. That has to be worth something in anyone’s book.” Not to mention the fact that it makes knowledge available to those that otherwise wouldn’t have access!
We have an Open Access Directory in Physiopedia and hope that in the future the list will grow. If you know any others please send them to me and I will add them to the directory.
