Volunteer Orientation Course

Original Editor - Rachael Lowe

Top Contributors - Admin, Kim Jackson, Rachael Lowe, Tony Lowe, Wendy Walker, Evan Thomas and Richard Benes  

Introduction

Physiopedia is the largest online resource for our profession in the world. It is a community-created resource and relies on rehabilitation professionals all over the world to create, review, and update content. A major part of this process is undertaken by our volunteer team whose role is to oversee the development of the Physiopedia content. All members of this team are graduates of our Volunteer Orientation Course.

The Volunteer Orientation Course is held every year. You can register your interest here. The next course will be held later in 2024.

Course Aim

The aim of the Volunteer Orientation Course is to prepare individuals to be a part of the Physiopedia volunteer team.

Course Co-ordinators

During this course, you will be personally mentored by the content manager of Physiopedia and members of the volunteer content team.

Course Summary

This free 3-week course is completely online. There is no specific time that you need to attend, you can do the course in your own time at a time that suits you, as long as you finish within the three weeks.

You will be given several tasks each week that you can complete in your own time. These tasks include the following:

1. Complete between 2 and 5 learning activities each week
2. Look at additional readings, videos and resources
3. Contribute to the online discussion on our chatting platform, Slack

You will also be actively encouraged to share your course activities and reflections through your own social media platforms.

Course Outline

1. Week one: Exploring Physiopedia - you will create your profile page on Physiopedia and explore all corners of the Physiopedia project
2. Week two: Reviewing and updating content - you will review and update an existing page in Physiopedia
3. Week three: Creating new pages - you will create a new page in Physiopedia

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course you will:

1. Be familiar with the many varied aspects of the Physiopedia project.
2. Be confident to edit Physiopedia.
3. Be familiar with the Physiopedia quality standards.
4. Have an idea of what role you would like to have in the Physiopedia project.
5. Develop key professional skills such as digital skills, social media skills and online professionalism.

Accreditation, Assessment and Certification

On the successful completion of this course (assessed by the course co-ordinators) each participant will be provided with a certificate of completion from Physiopedia plus a Yellow Belt badge. These will be awarded provided you have:

1. Completed your Physiopedia profile page.
2. Reviewed and updated an existing Physiopedia page.
3. Created your own new Physiopedia page.
4. Contributed to the discussion in Slack each week.
5. Completed your volunteer orientation activity report.

Time Commitment and Location

This course is 3 weeks long. Participants will be required to devote a minimum of 4 hours per week to the course. There is no specific time or place that you need to attend, you can do the course in your own time at a time and location that suits you.

Intended Audience

This course is suitable for any rehabilitation professional, including but not limited to physiotherapists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, prosthetists and orthotists, who would like to contribute to the Physiopedia project as a part of the official volunteer team.

Participants on this course must be:

1. A a rehabilitation professional. This includes students, graduates, clinicians, educators, or researchers.
2. Intending to take on a volunteer role within the Physiopedia project on completion of the course.
3. Committed to making monthly contributions to the Physiopedia project.
4. Willing to make edits to the Physiopedia website.

Course Contacts

Throughout this course you should email us if you have any problems at all. We would prefer that you let us know about problems or difficulties that you have encountered so that we can amend the guidance documents or create help videos and provide feedback and training where appropriate.

Contact course co-ordinator

Useful Links

You might find these resources useful throughout the course:

• Volunteer
• User Help Tutorials
• MediaWiki (this is the software that Physiopedia uses - the same as Wikipedia)
• Wikitext examples (This is the code that is written on the Physiopedia pages)