International networking: connecting midwivesthrough social mediainr_990 1..4

S. Stewart1,2 RGN, RM, DPSM, MA, EdD STUDENT,M. Sidebotham2 RGN, RM, DPSM, MA, PhD & D. Davis3 RM, PhD

1 Educational Developer, Educational Development Centre, Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2 Midwifery Lecturer,School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University, 3 Professor of Midwifery, Clinical Chair, Faculty of Health, ACT Healthand University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia

STEWART S., SIDEBOTHAM M. & DAVIS D. (2012) International networking: connecting midwives through

social media. International Nursing Review

Purpose: This article reports on the ‘Virtual International Day of the Midwife E-vent’, an innovative initiative

that uses social media to provide opportunities for learning and networking internationally.

Background: This e-vent was conceived of and initiated in 2009 by a small group of midwives with an

interest in social media. The e-vent uses web conferencing software and schedules a presentation every hour

for a 24-h period so as to reach midwives or other interested parties in all time zones of the globe.

Methods: The authors draw on their experiences to describe the e-vent including the e-vent aims and

organizing processes, and to report on participation trends over the 3-year period.

Findings: The e-vent has seen significant growth over a 3-year period with participation increasing from an

average of five participants per session to 50. The organizing committee has expanded to include an

international team and they have extended the reach of the project by establishing a Facebook page.

Conclusions: While the use of social media has its limitations, projects such as the International Day of the

Midwife E-vent have real potential to increase access to educational materials and provide opportunities for

international networking.

Keywords: E-Learning, International Day of the Midwife, Internet, Learning, Midwifery, Networking, Social

Media

IntroductionThe development and expansion of social media networks andtechnologies have changed the way we learn in this digital age(Attwell 2007). In the online environment, learning is based onnetworks and connections; people learn from the connectionsthey make to other people and information (Siemens 2004). Therapid expansion and diffusion of social media networks andcommunication technologies present the healthcare professionalwith a wealth of opportunity to engage with others in the inter-national arena (Steward 2009).

Ongoing professional development is important to the estab-lishment of a competent, professional workforce. Health pro-fessionals around the world are increasingly required to demon-strate ongoing competence through continuing professionaldevelopment (Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia 2010).Attendance at conferences, seminars and study days are examplesof traditional professional development activities. While mid-wives place high value on face-to-face professional developmentand networking opportunities (McIntosh 2007), the face-to-facemode has a number of limitations. Barriers to accessing tradi-tional forms of professional development include issues relatedto travel, cost and staffing or practice cover (Birch et al. 2005;Patterson & Davis 2007). These issues may be more acute forhealth professionals in rural areas or those from low-resourcesettings.

Correspondence address: Sarah Stewart, Educational Development Centre, OtagoPolytechnic, Forth Street, Private Bag 1910, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand; Tel:+64-3-4773014; Fax: +64-3-4716870; E-mail: sarahstewart07@gmail.com.

Experience from the Field

© 2012 The Authors. International Nursing Review © 2012 International Council of Nurses 1

These limitations encourage us to seek innovative ways tomeet the professional development needs of midwives and otherhealth professionals and increasingly we are looking to onlinecommunication tools and social media to provide the flexibilityand global networking opportunities that these media provide(Kildea et al. 2006; Morgan 2000). This article describes one suchinnovation; the ‘Virtual International Day of the Midwife E-vent’,which uses a variety of social media to bring midwives togetherfrom across the globe to share information, discuss and debatecontemporary midwifery issues.

The Virtual International Day ofthe Midwife E-ventThe Virtual International Day of the Midwife E-vent was firstconceived in 2009 by a small group of midwifery academics inNew Zealand with an interest in social media. These midwivesused their virtual presence to attract others with similar interestsand thus an international organizing committee was establishedwith members from New Zealand, Australia, Canada andEngland. This team designed the Virtual International Day of theMidwife project with the following aims:• to disseminate evidence-based research to support clinicalpractice,• to provide educational material through free-access channelsto all interested participants regardless of location,• to create an international network of practice and enable col-laboration and sharing of ideas,• to provide an opportunity for interaction with world leaders inmidwifery to all interested parties regardless of location,• to provide a freely available archive of high-quality educationalmaterial to support ongoing midwifery professional develop-ment, and• to provide opportunities for informal learning within a life-long learning paradigm.

A 24 h e-vent

A virtual 24 h educational e-vent using a variety of social mediawas organized on 5 May; the International Day of the Midwife.The e-vent was first held in 2009 and annually since in 2010 and2011. Beginning at 12:00 noon (New Zealand time) a session isheld every hour for 24 h providing an international audiencewith an opportunity to attend sessions in every time zone acrossthe globe. In 2011, all e-vent sessions were in the form of syn-chronous presentations or live discussion using the web confer-encing platform Elluminate, provided under the licence held byOtago Polytechnic, New Zealand.

Presenters came from a variety of countries including Aus-tralia, Burkina Faso, Brazil, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Nepal,the Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Romania, Spain, Swit-

zerland, Tunisia, UK and USA. Sessions were mostly conductedin English though several have been conducted in French. Thetopics that were presented and discussed included latestresearch to support clinical practice, commentary on profes-sional issues and storytelling. The event has seen significantgrowth with an average of five participants attending eachsession in 2009, 30 in 2010 and 50 in 2011. Some sessions pro-vided access to a cohort of participants (such as a classroom)under one log in so attendance numbers recorded may notreflect numbers actually attended. In addition, many partici-pants attended more than one session (one participant reportedthat they attended all 24 sessions). Each session was recordedand these recordings have been available via the project wiki(http://internationaldayofthemidwife.wikispaces.com). By theend of 2011, the 2009 Program and Recordings page of the wikihad over 5000 views; the 2010 Program and Recordings pagehad 12 500 and the 2011 Program and Recordings page hadover 21 000 views.

E-vent organizing

The growth of the project has required increased commitment tothe organization of the event. The international committeemeets regularly via Skype and uses the e-vent wiki Google Docu-ments and web conferencing to organize the event, recruit speak-ers and facilitators, and host information about the program.The information hosted on the e-vent wiki includes the pro-gramme, session abstracts, information about presenters, infor-mation about using the web conferencing software and links tosession recordings. The wiki allows complete transparency of allour processes. Although there have been concerns that the wikican be tampered with, and therefore should be more strictly‘controlled’, it has been our experience that the wiki worksextremely well and effectively models international sharing andcollaboration.

The e-vent was advertised online via numerous channelsincluding midwifery email groups, Facebook pages (http://www.facebook.com/VirtualInternationalDayoftheMidwife),Twitter (http://twitter.com/VIDofM) and face-to-face networks.The Facebook page was set up in November 2010 and currentlyhas 834 ‘likes’ representing a largely female (95%) audience fromover 19 countries. This provides access to over 250 000 ‘friends offans’. A large proportion of fans reside in the USA, followed byAustralia, New Zealand, UK Canada and Spain.

A call for abstracts was disseminated widely through profes-sional networks and social media and all abstracts were peerreviewed by the project scientific committee. The assessmentcriteria used for selecting abstracts is published on the e-ventwiki. The organizing committee also used their professional net-works to invite midwifery leaders to deliver keynotes addresses.

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© 2012 The Authors. International Nursing Review © 2012 International Council of Nurses

Project limitations

While the Virtual International Day of the Midwife E-vent aimsto provide educational material through free access channels toall interested participants regardless of location, significant limi-tations must be acknowledged. At this point, the e-vent is largelyconducted in English, making sessions inaccessible to non-English speakers. Participation in the project also requires accessto a computer and Internet and these resources may not beavailable in low-resource settings. Some rural areas also strugglewith broadband issues and inadequate access can impact thefunctioning of the web conferencing software, making the con-ference experience less than ideal.

The organizing committee has considered strategies foraddressing some of these limitations including, for example,burning presentations to DVD and disseminating these to inter-ested groups. We hope the project may grow to such an extentthat concurrent sessions could be offered and we would welcomesessions held in languages other than English.

This may be too large a task for a group of people who have noresources and function purely on voluntary efforts. Therefore,future development of the event may include looking for col-laborative arrangements with organizations who would sponsora more inclusive approach to disseminating the artefacts of thee-vent. In the meantime, efforts are being made to turn therecordings into mp3 files so that midwives can download the filesfrom the wiki onto their mobile devices, wherever they live in theworld (Kaplan 2006).

DiscussionThe Virtual International Day of the Midwife E-vent is an initia-tive that has developed as a result of the commitment of a smallgroup of health professionals and educators openly to sharelearning opportunities with colleagues in a virtual environment.The e-vent highlights the importance of ongoing professionaldevelopment, the benefits of interacting with an internationalaudience and of seeking ways to achieve this that are accessibleand sustainable.

E-conferences are gaining in popularity especially with theeconomic downturn and the need for organizations to demon-strate budgetary restraint (Lin 2010). E-conferencing has anumber of advantages over face-to-face conferences includingconvenience, ease of access, improved flexibility, productivityand cost savings. Flexibility is important to learners in this digitalage as more and more midwives and other health professionalsare able to choose where, how and what they learn, at a time thatsuits them according to their personal learning needs (Koper &Tattershall 2004). The ability to record and archive sessions isalso a significant advantage. In a case study of businesses in theUSA, Lin (2010) found that those who participated in

e-conferencing were satisfied with the professional interactionafforded by e-conferences. They reported that e-conferencingimproved their ability to build professional relationships, expandtheir professional networks and maintain relationships firstestablished face to face.

E-conferencing also has its disadvantages including technicalissues, social interaction and the ability of participants to focuson the conference or presentation. Technical issues include prob-lems with bandwidth and Internet connections and these may bemore acute for those attempting to join the conference fromrural or isolated settings. E-conferences do not allow participantsto socialize in the same way that face-to-face conferences do, andthis can limit the extent to which social and professional rela-tionships develop. Attendance at a face-to-face conference, espe-cially at some geographical distance, represents a significantcommitment on the part of the participant. Other work is putaside as schedules are cleared and the participant is afforded theluxury of focusing keenly on the conference and presentations.During an e-conference, participants are not physically removedfrom the work or home environment so competing commit-ments can encroach (Krumdieck & Orchardf 2011).

The Virtual International Day of the Midwives’ E-vent differedfrom an e-conference in that it was a 24-h event aiming toprovide access to participants from all times zones across theglobe. Unlike e-conferences, which often model face-to-face con-ferences in their profit-making intent (Krumdieck & Orchardf2011), this e-vent did not charge participants to attend. What ismore, all archived materials generated by this e-vent are storedon an open wiki (so that anyone can access them) and have beencreated under Creative Commons by Attribution licence. Thismeans that the recordings of sessions can not only be accessedbut can be reused, for example, by an educational or healthcareorganization. These features reflect the organizers’ commitmentto open content. Open content refers to resources or creativeworks to which usual copyright restrictions do not apply. Someforms of Creative Commons licensing, for example, allow othersto use, copy or modify the work. The rising costs associated withdeveloping educational resources and pressures on educators’time makes open content an attractive option for many (Johnsonet al. 2009). Open-content resources may also be a useful supportfor midwives in less well-resourced countries.

ConclusionThe Virtual International Day of the Midwife E-vent is an inno-vative initiative that uses social media to provide educational andnetworking opportunities to midwives across the world. While itis not without its limitations, there is real potential for this typeof e-vent. The e-vent has seen significant growth in the 3 years ithas been running and this demonstrates that it is at least meeting

Midwives and social media 3

© 2012 The Authors. International Nursing Review © 2012 International Council of Nurses

the needs of some midwives internationally. The establishmentof a Facebook page in 2010 has increased the reach of the orga-nizers in terms of e-vent promotion. The growth in the e-venthas required expansion of the organizing committee and greaterfocus on establishing effective processes and communicationstrategies. The organizers are committed to the aims of thisproject and plan to continue providing free access to this annualevent. The challenge for the committee will be to manage thegrowth in the e-vent, to continue to provide high-quality presen-tations including keynote addresses from world leaders inmidwifery and to search for ways that we can make thise-vent accessible to those from less well-resourced settings whounarguably, have the most to gain from open-content learningopportunities.

AcknowledgementsVirtual International Day of the Midwife team: Pam Harnden,Chris Woodhouse and Lorriane Mockford.

Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin New Zealand for providing freeweb conferencing facilities.

Author contributionSS and DD study design and data collection SS and MS dataanalysis and manuscript drafting DD provided editorial support.

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