Emergency Bear Treats: Article of the Week: Innovative online faculty development using the power of social media

I chose the attached article from a recent publication by the Academic Pediatric Association (APA): Innovative online faculty development using the power of social media.

It highlights research on the use of Facebook in facilitating a Faculty Development exercise.

I thought this research was interesting and relevant to our group as we come from such a wide array of interests but have so many challenges in creating forums for exchanging ideas or building networks. I am sure those of us that have attempted to lead interest groups within our department or find meeting times or social events that can yield some significant attendance would agree with me.

The author, a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s, points out that geographically dispersed faculty face increasing challenges of distance, cost and time constraints for participation in faculty development activities. However, asynchronous free social media such as Facebook may offer potential solutions, including blogs, wikis, social networking sites through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, and personal messages.

This was a descriptive, mixed-methods study which assessed the utility, effectiveness, and facilitator challenges associated with the use of Facebook as an online faculty development tool. They hosted a closed Facebook group for 17 junior faculty participants in the APA Educational Scholars program. In this qualitative study, they found themes in Facebook usage noting that participants were involved in knowledge exchange (discussing, questioning/answering, and learning about new tools and opportunities) and social capital (networking, sharing ideas). They note their initial attempts at performing this activity on a home-grown networking online system that did not yield high participation rates. This contrasts with Facebook participation for the study group already at 88% prior to the launch of the study.