NätSpeS 2004 - hinder och möjligheter med nätburna specialistsjuksköterskeprogram

Abstract

The project Net-based Specialist Nursing Programmes - obstacles and possibilities for a national co-ordination in theory and practice originated from a seminar in the beginning of 2004. The need for co-operation was discussed with the intention to create net-based specialist nursing programmes, save resources and improve the quality in the existing programmes. The purpose was to describe the requirements for a national co-ordination of net-based education programmes in order to meet the need of nurse specialists. The project has continued throughout 2004 and all Institutes of Higher Education (IHEs) in Sweden have been involved. Some of the main project questions have been: To what extent could a national co-ordination influence the use of existing resources within the theoretical and clinical practice components of education? What would be the implications of a national coordination and what conditions would be required? What obstacles and possibilities could there be? Which models for net-based education would be suitable for different specialist nursing programmes and for the theoretical and clinical practice components of education? Which education programmes or parts of programmes are suitable to be net-based? There have been activities in workshops and conferences, both live and via Marratech, a web-based conference software. Questionnaires were sent to all IHEs. Senior personnel at the Ministry of Education, National Agency for Higher Education, The National Board of Health and Welfare, Federation of County Councils and The Swedish Society of Nursing were interviewed. Two students were also interviewed based on their experience of distance education. There have been possibilities for each group to discuss and make comments through an open dialogue at the Ezone web platform. The accomplishment of the project will be analysed and assessed by an external assessor reported in April, 2005. The results, based on collected data from workshops, conferences, questionnaires and interviews indicate that, there is a need of and a great interest in collaboration because there are difficulties in recruiting students to some programmes. There are different suggestions for collaboration with programmes at national, regional and local levels. The experiences from existing co-operation were positive. Many IHEs were already using distance learning and netbased learning. As a conclusion of the project an outline was presented of a model for further development of the ideas discussed in this project.