Creating a Virtual Journal Club: A Community of Practice Using Multiple Social Media Strategies

Abstract

RIP OUT Creating a Virtual Journal Club: A Community of Practice Using Multiple Social Media Strategies Michelle Lin, MD (@M_Lin) Jonathan Sherbino, MD, MEd (@sherbino) The Challenge Rip Out Action Items Health professions educators should: A journal club provides an opportunity to critically appraise the medical literature and apply it to clinical practice. Traditional, in-person journal clubs face challenges of scheduling participants and facilitators, recruiting local experts, and having a limited, local impact. What Is Known Journal clubs may help develop communities of practice involving ‘‘groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.’’ 1 With the advent of modern digital technologies, online medical-related journal clubs are increasing: partici- pation can be synchronous or asynchronous, experts can be recruited from a global pool, and discussions are digitally archived for broader dissemination. In addition, these journal clubs may disseminate educa- tional innovations and interventions to a wider audience for further study, and they provide rapid feedback to authors regarding similar work occurring elsewhere. These online discourses, however, typically incorporate a single social media strategy, such as Twitter-based journal clubs (#UroJC, 2 #NephJC, http://www.nephjc.com). In an age where we view, engage, and learn from multiple digital streams, a virtual journal club requires a multimodal social media strategy to optimize reach and engagement. In January 2015, a virtual medical education journal club called ‘‘JGME- ALiEM Hot Topics in Medical Education’’ was piloted as a joint collaboration between the Journal of Graduate Medical Education and Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM, an education blog with 1.2 million page views per year). 3 This Rip Out describes how to move from hosting an online, single DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-15-00070.1 Editor’s Note: The online version of this article contains the framework used for the blog post featuring the JGME/ALiEM Hot Topics in Medical Education journal club. 1. Incorporate multiple social media strategies when devel- oping a virtual journal club. 2. Ensure that facilitators are familiar with different social media platforms, including blogs, Twitter, and Google Hangouts on Air videoconferencing. 3. Identify the core team, which consists of at least 4 individuals with unique roles and responsibilities: a primary facilitator, a secondary facilitator/social media expert, a featured author, and an expert discussant. 4. Prepare, host, and conclude the virtual journal club in a 5- stage approach: preparation, promotion, journal club launch, livestream video discussion, and curated dissemination. 5. Use web analytics to trend use and reach as indirect measures of success and impact. platform to a virtual, multimodal journal club by using a blog platform as the central repository of information to house blog comments, embedded Twitter comments, and embedded Google Hangouts on Air video discussions. How You Can Start TODAY 1. Technology platform setup a. Create a (or join an existing) blog. b. Ensure that each facilitator has a Twitter account. c. Create a free YouTube channel to host the livestreamed Google Hangouts on Air video- conference. 2. Build the core team: A minimum of 4 core team members are needed to host a virtual journal club. a. Primary facilitator across the platforms (blog, Twitter, videoconference) b. Secondary facilitator and expert in social media platforms c. Author from the featured journal club pub- lication, to participate in the videoconference discussion d. Topic expert to participate in the videocon- ference discussion Journal of Graduate Medical Education, September 2015