Online interprofessional education facilitation: A scoping review.

INTRODUCTION: The use of online media to deliver interprofessional education (IPE) is becoming more prevalent across health professions education settings. Facilitation of IPE activities is known to be critical to the effective delivery of IPE, however, specifics about the nature of online IPE facilitation remains unclear. AIM: To explore the health professions education literature to understand the extent, range and nature of research on online IPE facilitation. METHODS: Scoping review methodology was used to guide a search of four electronic databases for relevant papers. Of the 2095 abstracts initially identified, after screening of both abstracts and full-text papers, 10 studies were selected for inclusion in this review. Following abstraction of key information from each study, a thematic analysis was undertaken. RESULTS: Three key themes emerged to describe the nature of the IPE facilitation literature: (1) types of online IPE facilitation contributions, (2) the experience of online IPE facilitation and (3) personal outcomes of online IPE facilitation. These IPE facilitation themes were particularly focused on facilitation of interprofessional student teams on an asynchronous basis. DISCUSSION: While the included studies provide some insight into the nature of online IPE facilitation, future research is needed to better understand facilitator contributions, and the facilitation experience and associated outcomes, both relating to synchronous and asynchronous online environments.

An exploration of teaching presence in online interprofessional education facilitation.

BACKGROUND: Although the prevalence of online asynchronous interprofessional education (IPE) has increased in the last decade, little is known about the processes of facilitation in this environment. The teaching presence element of the Community of Inquiry Framework offers an approach to analyze the contributions of online facilitators, however, to date it has only been used on a limited basis in health professions education literature. AIM: Using an exploratory case study design, we explored the types of contributions made by IPE facilitators to asynchronous interprofessional team discussions by applying the notion of teaching presence. METHODS: Using a purposeful sampling approach, we analyzed 14 facilitators' contributions to asynchronous team discussion boards in an online IPE course. We analyzed data using directed content analysis based on the key indicators of teaching presence. RESULTS: The online IPE facilitators undertook the three critical pedagogical functions identified in teaching presence: facilitating discourse, direct instruction, and instructional design and organization. While our data fitted well with a number of key activities embedded in these three functions, further modification of the teaching presence concept was needed to describe our facilitators' teaching presence. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides an initial insight into the key elements of online asynchronous IPE facilitation. Further research is required to continue to illuminate the complexity of online asynchronous IPE facilitation.