title: Developing leadership practices in hospital-based nurse educators in an online learning community.
abstract: Hospital-based nurse educators are in a prime position to mentor future nurse leaders; however, they need to first develop their own leadership practices. The goal was to establish a learning community where hospital-based nurse educators could develop their own nursing leadership practices within an online environment that included teaching, cognitive, and social presence. Using a pretest/posttest-only nonexperimental design, 35 nurse educators from three Canadian provinces engaged in a 12-week online learning community via a wiki where they learned about exemplary leadership practices and then shared stories about their own leadership practices. Nurse educators significantly increased their own perceived leadership practices after participation in the online community, and teaching, cognitive, and social presence was determined to be present in the online community. It was concluded that leadership development can be enhanced in an online learning community using a structured curriculum, multimedia presentations, and the sharing and analysis of leadership stories. Educators who participated should now be better equipped to role model exemplary leadership practices and mentor our nurse leaders of the future.
authors.affiliation: Author Affiliations: Division of Continuing Professional Development, Faulty of Medicine, and Faculty of Nursing, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg (Dr Stutsky); and Faculty of Health Sciences, Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, University of Western Ontario, London (Dr Spence Laschinger), Canada.
authors.forename: Brenda J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Stutsky
authors.forename: Heather K
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Spence Laschinger
mesh_terms: D002170:Canada; D004509:Education, Nursing, Continuing; D020407:Internet; D007857:Leadership; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital