title: The Informatics Collaboratory: building an online community to support health care informatics students.
abstract: For the past decade, the School of Nursing has examined the role of computer mediated communication and virtual environments in both health care and educational systems. This recent project, the I-Collaboratory, draws upon previous work and builds on recent studies examining the role of social presence in learning communities. The I-Collaboratory creates a virtual infrastructure to support a collaborative learning environment for Master level students in a web-based health care informatics program. This innovative and supportive environment allows students to learn through collaborative inter-actions and have access to a cadre of professionals associated with nursing, informatics and health care. This paper provides an introduction to the concept of a collaboratory and describes the set of principles derived from the literature that serve as a foundation. The process of selecting a web-based platform and the development of the online community based on the results of a need assessment is also detailed. The paper concludes with an outline of the online community components and the plans for evaluation.
authors.affiliation: University of Colorado, Health Sciences Center, School of Nursing, Denver, CO, USA. Diane.Skiba@uchsc.edu
authors.forename: Diane J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Skiba
authors.forename: Amy J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Barton
authors.forename: Audrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Howard
authors.forename: Leeann
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fields
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: McCullar
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004511:Education, Nursing, Graduate; D007256:Information Systems; D020407:Internet; D007858:Learning; D020380:Needs Assessment; D048108:Nursing Informatics / Q000193:education*; D012984:Software