Help:Students Guide

Introduction

Welcome to the Student's Guide section on Physiopedia! This page is specifically developed to help students get involved in developing and using Physiopedia to expand their knowledge of the profession. Specifically, Physiopedia offers students the opportunity to develop clinically useful information, connect with educators and peers, and even work on learning activities related to your coursework. This guide explores ways that you can learn while sharing information with the rest of the physio world!

You may also want to check out the User Tutorials and Etiquette pages when you begin.

Wikipedia for the physiotherapy community

Physiopedia is a wiki. A Wiki is a website that allows users to easily edit and contribute to that website. Wikis are particularly suited to collaborative group authoring of documents and websites. The most famous example of a Wiki is Wikipedia, a very extensive on-line encyclopaedia that allows anyone to add to and edit its entries.

Wikis in teaching and learning

The nature of wikis means they offer a number benefits relating to learning and teaching applications:

• Wikis are ideal for collaborative writing applications.
• Wikis can be edited and entries published without knowledge of specialist web development tools.
• A wiki enables the development history of a document to be explored revealing who contributed what and when.
  
• A wiki will never be lost along with the efforts that have been made in adding content to them, they can be continually updated and always be referred to.

Physiopedia in teaching and learning

As a wiki, Physiopedia offers students an excellent opportunity to become involved in the creation of this global resource as part of an educational program or even independent study.  Student involvement in creating, reviewing and updating Physiopedia content is an excellent activity for developing skills of reflection, critical assessment, and writing.

Why should you get involved?

If you are in PT school then you are extremely busy, so why should you spend the extra time to help develop Physiopedia?  In short, because Physiopedia will make you a better student. Here is a few reasons why:

• Getting involved early in your professional career creating, reviewing, and editing Physiopedia content is an excellent way to develop your professional writing skills, a critical eye for relevant information, and for developing reflection.
• Physiopedia is a good study tool.  The information on Physiopedia is easy to find and access, and because our authors are qualified physiotherapists, physical therapists, and students, the information is relevant and correct.
• If the information you are looking for is not on the site, you can add it.  This is an excellent way to reflect on and share your knowledge, and an even better study tool!
• You will develop your skills for finding and reviewing literature.  The information on Physiopedia is evidence-based, so the information you post needs to be backed by scientific evidence.
• By editing Physiopedia you are collaborating with colleagues and making contacts in your profession.  The sooner you can do this in your career, the better!
• You are a part of advancing the profession. By becoming involved with Physiopedia now, while it is still in its early stages of development, you are helping to move the profession forward.

Those of us at Physiopedia recognize that school is a busy and stressfull time, but we are also aware that student contributions will be a valuable part of developing Physiopedia and sharing it with the world!

Signing Up and Frequently Asked Questions

If you have decided to go ahead and use Physiopedia, your first step is to sign up for an account, follow our step-by-step guide for students to create your account.  Once your account is live, check out the User Tutorials (link in the left-hand column) to get started.

For answers to your questions, start first at the Help page, and then email with any other questions or concerns you may have.

Once you have decided to use Physiopedia you should follow this step by step guide to get you started. 

Get your own Physiopedia account

1. Sign up for a Physiopedia account for yourself by pressing the request account tab in the left sidebar.  We suggest that your username is your full name.
2. When you request your account inform us that you are a student and let us know what institution you attend.  If you are signing up at the request of a certain instructor, let us know that too.
3. Wait for email confirmation that your account has been activated.
4. Once your account has been activated have a go at editing a page yourself.  It is best to start by editing your profile page to give yourself a presence in Physiopedia.  See our user tutorials on editing pages and editing your profile.

Provide feedback to us

We would be grateful if you would provide us with feedback of your experience of using Physiopedia as a learning tool.  We will use this feedback to improve Physiopedia as a teaching and learning tool for educators and students alike.  You can provide us feedback by email.