OB3 can be used to facilitate student-led online journal clubs, which combine document content with in-line discussions. Students co-create media-rich discussion documents in small groups within a unit of study. The aim is to develop links between theoretical concepts and clinical or professional practice. This activity promotes active student participation within a framework provided by academic staff.
In 2014, an Ophthalmic Science postgraduate degree, jointly run by the University of Sydney and University of Otago, started using journal clubs as an assessment activity. OB3 was chosen for the student-led online journal clubs because the asynchronous discussions are displayed in-line with content, and author attribution could be tracked across the system (Petsoglou et al., 2022).
The journal club entries have the goal of helping students to develop links between basic sciences and clinical practice, and allowing them to find the relevance of these basic principles in day-to-day practice (Gomez et. al., 2022). Students in small groups focus on current scientific articles relating to course content.
Figure 1 describes how a journal club entry starts
Academic staff creates the document. Then the student leading the entry
chooses the topic, develops a summary, and develops questions for fellow students
The journal club assignment was instituted in 3 units of study: Ophthalmic Physiology, Ophthalmic Anatomy and Optics. Students were assigned weekly discussion topics and encouraged to select a clinically relevant peer reviewed journal article related to the week’s lectures. 1-2 students developed summaries and the clinical implications of the basic sciences lectures discussed inside OB3. Fellow students had 7 days to discuss and expand on these ideas and build a collaborative online document analysing scientific evidence, other articles, relevance to basic sciences and future directions of research (Petsoglou et al., 2022). Figure 1 introduces how the activity is set up.
Through this activity, it is possible to assess the impact of experiential based online discussions for postgraduate students enrolled in the degree. Highlighting the real world relevance to the course material enhances student engagement and improves retention of foundational concepts (Petsoglou et al., 2020).
Figure 2 highlights in colour each contributor to the journal club entry.
Three students have answered the questions posed by the student leading this topic.
Figure 3 sourced from OB3 Working Paper (Gomez et al. 2018)
This online collaboration works very well as an assessment activity. Students are comfortable discussing papers that marry science and practice together because this is day-to-day work for them. Experiential online learning via a journal club in basic science units of study encourage interaction among the students and increase educational engagement of medical professionals enrolled in postgraduate degrees (Gomez et. al., 2022; Petsoglou et al., 2022).