Toward a common understanding: supporting and promoting education scholarship for medical school faculty

To prove or improve? Examining how paradoxical tensions shape evaluation practices in accreditation contexts

INTRODUCTION

Although programme evaluation is increasingly routinised across the academic health sciences, there is scant research on the factors that shape the scope and quality of evaluation work in health professions education. Our research addresses this gap, by studying how the context in which evaluation is practised influences the type of evaluation that can be conducted. Focusing on the context of accreditation, we critically examine the types of paradoxical tensions that surface as evaluation-leads consider evaluation ideals or best practices in relation to contextual demands associated with accreditation seeking.

METHODS

Our methods were qualitative and situated within a critical realist paradigm. Study participants were 29 individuals with roles requiring responsibility and oversight on evaluation work. They worked across 4 regions, within 26 academic health science institutions. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using framework and matrix analyses.

RESULTS

We identified three overarching themes: (i) absence of collective coherence about evaluation practice, (ii) disempowerment of expertise and (iii) tensions as routine practice. Examples of these latter tensions in evaluation work included (i) resourcing accreditation versus resourcing robust evaluation strategy (performing paradox), (ii) evaluation designs to secure accreditation versus design to spur renewal and transformation (performing-learning paradox) and (iii) public dissemination of evaluation findings versus restricted or selective access (publicising paradox). Sub-themes and illustrative data are presented.

DISCUSSION

Our study demonstrates how the high-stakes context of accreditation seeking surfaces tensions that can risk the quality and credibility of evaluation practices. To mitigate these risks, those who commission or execute evaluation work must be able to identify and reconcile these tensions. We propose strategies that may help optimise the quality of evaluation work alongside accreditation-seeking efforts. Critically, our research highlights the limitations of continually positioning evaluation purely as a method versus as a socio-technical practice that is highly vulnerable to contextual influences.

Key Informants in Applied Qualitative Health Research

Identifying and recruiting key informants is a widely used sampling strategy in applied qualitative health research. Key informants were first conceptualized within ethnography, but there is little methodological guidance about how to use this technique outside of that research tradition. The objective of this article is to offer practical suggestions about how existing methods for data collection with key informants could be translated to methodologies commonly used in applied qualitative health research. This article delineates how key informants could be conceptualized and sampled and how data sufficiency can be approached. The article prompts deeper consideration of the politics of representation and epistemic power that are inherent to the use of key informants in applied qualitative health research.

Program evaluation: An educator's portal into academic scholarship

Program evaluation is an "essential responsibility" but is often not seen as a scholarly pursuit. While Boyer expanded what qualifies as educational scholarship, many still need to engage in processes that are rigorous and of a requisite academic standard to be labelled as scholarly. Many medical educators may feel that scholarly program evaluation is a daunting task due to the competing interests of curricular change, remediation, and clinical care. This paper explores how educators can take their questions around outcomes and efficacy of our programs and efficiently engage in education scholarship. The authors outline how educators can examine whether training programs have a desired impact and outcomes, and then how they might leverage this process into education scholarship.

Educating the Educator: Evaluation and Review of the ADMSEP Education Scholars Program

OBJECTIVE

This report examines the first 8 years of the Association of Directors of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry (ADMSEP) Education Scholars Program (ESP) to determine the impact of the program on alumni careers and scholarship and their reception of the ESP. The 2-year longitudinal professional development program, launched in 2012, provides foundational knowledge to improve scholarship skills for faculty in psychiatry medical student education. The program is unique among national faculty development programs for psychiatry medical educators in its focus on scholarship and its requirement of completion of a research project in medical education..

METHODS

All 19 graduates of the program were sent a 30-question survey that explored alumni perceptions of the impact of the program on their confidence to engage in educational scholarship and on their careers. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were used to examine responses to the multiple choice and open-ended questions. A PubMed search was used to ascertain papers published by alumni since completion of the program.

RESULTS

Graduate survey responses indicated a high level of satisfaction with the key elements of the program. Alumni respondents reported positive perceptions of participation in the program on their careers as well as on their interest, confidence, knowledge, and skills to engage in scholarship. Nine alumni have had scholarly work published since completion of the program.

CONCLUSIONS

The ADMSEP ESP was highly valued by participants. It fills an important need for faculty in psychiatry medical student education by providing a national professional development program focused on scholarship.

Becoming Agents of Change: Contextual Influences on Medical Educator Professionalization and Practice in a LMIC Context

Medical educators are particularly needed in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC), where medical schools have grown rapidly in size, number, and global outlook in response to persistent health workforce shortages and increased expectations of quality care. Educator development is thus the focus of many LMIC programs initiated by universities and governments of high income countries. While signs of medical educator professionalization such as postgraduate qualifications, specialized units, and professional associations have emerged in LMIC, whether these relate to programs originating from outside LMIC contexts is unknown. This study investigated the contextual influences on the long-term impact of an international faculty development program a decade after its delivery in a LMIC context - Vietnam. Ten years after an international aid program to develop clinical skills teaching expertise in Vietnam, we conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with eight medical educators from all eight participating medical schools. Selected for their leadership potential, each participant had completed the Maastricht Masters in Health Professions Education during the program. Interview transcripts underwent thematic analysis, using the Theory of Practice Architectures as a conceptual lens to highlight the contextual influences on professional practice. Four themes were identified: Careers and Practices before, during, and after the program, Unrecognized and Unseen practice, Structural Restraints on individual advancement and collective activity, and the Cultivation of Connections through social traditions. Participants reported being in well-established teaching delivery roles. However, the absence of professionalizing discourses and material resources meant that practice was restricted and determined by institutional leadership and individuals' adaptations. Informed by the theory of practice architectures, we found that change in medical education practice will falter in contexts that lack supporting discursive, material-economic, and socio-political arrangements. While there were emerging signs of individual agency, the momentum of change was not sustained and perhaps unapparent to Western framings of educational leadership. Practice architectures offers a framework for identifying the contextual features which influence practice, from which to design and deliver sustainable and impactful interventions, and to advance context-relevant evaluation and research. Our findings suggest that faculty development delivered across diverse contexts, such as in distributed or transnational medical programs, may have more effect if informed by a practice architectures analysis of each context.

The Ontological Choreography of Continuing Professional Development: A Mixed-Methods Study of Continuing Professional Development Leaders and Program Directors

INTRODUCTION

Reports have forecast significant changes ahead for Continuing Professional Development (CPD). With new models on the horizon, CPD developers will require additional knowledge and training. Our objective was to learn how CPD leaders and developers came into their roles, if they are engaged in scholarship and the challenges and opportunities in pursuing scholarship.

METHODS

We conducted a mixed grounded theory study, inviting CPD leaders within our institution for interviews focused on career paths, CPD and scholarly activities, networks, and supports and challenges. We invited 405 program/conference directors from our institution to participate in a survey focused on similar themes. We used the framework of ontological choreography in our final analysis.

RESULTS

We conducted 13 interviews and had a survey response rate of 28.6% (n = 116). We identified three themes: (1) the pathway to becoming an expert in CPD planning and delivery is often unplanned, unclear, and uncredentialed; (2) CPD is undervalued as a field, with inadequate time and funding allocated; and (3) engagement with scholarship is variable while identifying resources to support scholarship is difficult.

DISCUSSION

Beyond the usual calls for CPD to be more appropriately recognized and valued, this article offers another way to explore why past visions of the future have not been fully realized; CPD means different things to different people; it is ontologically different even across a single network in a single faculty.

Understanding community family medicine preceptors' involvement in educational scholarship: perceptions, influencing factors and promising areas for action

BACKGROUND

Residency training is increasingly occurring in community settings. The opportunity for community-based scholarship is untapped and substantial. We explored Community Family Medicine Preceptors' understanding of Educational Scholarship (ES), looked at barriers and enablers to ES, and identified opportunities to promote the growth of ES in this setting.

METHODS

We conducted semi-structured interviews with fifteen purposively chosen community-based Family Medicine preceptors in a distributed Canadian family medicine program.

RESULTS

Community Family Medicine Preceptors strongly self-identify as clinical teachers. They are not well acquainted with the definition of ES, but recognize themselves as scholars. Community Family Medicine Preceptors recognize ES has significant value to themselves, their patients, communities, and learners. Most Community Family Medicine Preceptors were interested and willing to invest in ES, but lack of time and scarcity of primary care research experience were seen as barriers. Research process support and a connection to the academic center were considered enablers. Opportunities to promote the growth of ES include recognition that there are fundamental differences between community and academic sites, the development of a mentorship program, and a process to encourage engagement.

CONCLUSIONS

Community Family Medicine Preceptors identify foremost as clinician teachers. They are engaged in and recognize the value of ES to their professional community at large and to their patients and learners. There is a growing commitment to the development of ES in the community.

Scholarly Requirements and Support for Nursing Faculty Development and Career Advancement: A Nationwide Delphi Study

AIM

The aim of the study was to better understand the scholarship requirements and support for nursing faculty as they work to advance their scholarship and careers.

BACKGROUND

Nursing faculty are often required to participate in teaching, service, and scholarship. New faculty often struggle with the scholarship component.

METHOD

A nationwide Delphi study was conducted, surveying deans and/or associate deans for research at master's and doctoral degree-granting institutions.

RESULTS

Scholarly requirements provided for faculty to enable development of scholarship were well defined: having a dedicated leader; funding support; a culture of scholarship; publications, presentations, and grant writing expectations; formal programs; mentors; and support.

CONCLUSION

This study provided a beginning understanding of important aspects of faculty support for scholarship and career development. More information is needed to determine if the support structures and activities described reach faculty and enhance career development.

Mapping the Expert Mind: Integration Method for Revising the ACES Medical Simulation Curriculum

PURPOSE

This article shares our experience developing an integrated curriculum for the ACES (Acute Critical Event Simulation) program. The purpose of the ACES program is to ensure that health care providers develop proficiency in the early management of critically ill patients. The program includes multiple different types of educational interventions (mostly simulation-based) and targets both specialty and family physicians practicing in tertiary and community hospitals.

METHODS

To facilitate integration between different educational interventions, we developed a knowledge repository consisting of cognitive sequence maps that make explicit the flow of cognitive activities carried out by experts facing different situations - the sequence maps then serving as the foundation upon which multimodal simulation scenarios would be built. To encourage participation of experts, we produced this repository as a peer-reviewed ebook. Five national organizations collaborated with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada to identify and recruit expert authors and reviewers. Foundational chapters, centered on goals/interventions, were first developed to comprehensively address most tasks conducted in the early management of a critically ill patient. Tasks from the foundational chapters were then used to complete the curriculum with situations. The curriculum development consisted of two-phases each followed by a peer-review process. In the first phase, focus groups using web-conferencing were conducted to map clinical practice approaches and in the second, authors completed the body of the chapter (e.g., introduction, definition, concepts, etc.) then provided a more detailed description of each task linked to supporting evidence.

RESULTS

Sixty-seven authors and thirty-five peer reviewers from various backgrounds (physicians, pharmacists, nurses, respiratory therapists) were recruited. On average, there were 32 tasks and 15 situations per chapter. The average number of focus group meetings needed to develop a map (one map per chapter) was 6.7 (SD ± 3.6). We found that the method greatly facilitated integration between different chapters especially for situations which are not limited to a single goal or intervention. For example, almost half of the tasks of the Hypercapnic Ventilatory Failure chapter map were borrowed from other maps with some modifications, which significantly reduced the authors' workload and enhanced content integration. This chapter was also linked to 6 other chapters.

CONCLUSIONS

To facilitate curriculum integration, we have developed a knowledge repository consisting of cognitive maps which organize time-sensitive tasks in the proper sequence; the repository serving as the foundation upon which other educational interventions are then built. While this methodology is demanding, authors welcomed the challenge given the scholarly value of their work, thus creating an interprofessional network of educators across Canada.

Boyer and Beyond: An Interview Study of Health Professions Education Scholarship Units in the United States and a Synthetic Framework for Scholarship at the Unit Level

PURPOSE

Health professions education scholarship units (HPESUs) in the United States are large in number and diverse in purpose, activities, and contributions. Although each of these units shares a commitment to scholarship, there is no synthetic framework to accurately represent and evaluate their activities and contributions. This study aimed to provide such a framework.

METHOD

The authors examined data collected from 11 U.S. HPESU directors. Interviews occurred between April 2015 and February 2016. The research team used a combination of deductive and inductive qualitative techniques to analyze the interview transcripts. The deductive portion drew on Boyer's four-part framework of scholarship; the inductive portion produced a new conceptualization of scholarship at the HPESU level.

RESULTS

The scholarly activities of HPESUs generally align with Boyer's four types of scholarship-discovery, integration, application, and teaching. However, this categorization fails to capture the interconnectedness and variety of purposes served by these activities. Both are important when considering how best to represent the scholarly contributions made by HPESUs. From their analysis of interviews, the authors developed a three-part framework characterizing HPESU scholarly activities: supporting a scholarly approach to education, supporting educational scholarship within the institution, and supporting HPESU members' scholarship.

CONCLUSIONS

The authors contend that the three-part, unit-level framework for scholarship constructed in this study brings clarity and understanding to the purpose, activities, and contributions made by HPESUs in the United States. The proposed framework may allow unit directors to better justify and advocate for the resources needed to further promote the work of HPESUs.

Faculty Support for a Culture of Scholarship of Discovery: A Literature Review

BACKGROUND

A review of the literature was completed answering the question: "What is known about the barriers to, and support of, the scholarship of discovery that faculty members in nursing and related health sciences (i.e., medical, dental, and pharmacy) whose time is used in both the academic setting and clinical setting encounter as they develop programs of research, engage in grant writing, and pursue scientific publication?"

METHODS

Using a systematic approach, a total of 29 articles were included in this review.

RESULTS

Four major themes were identified: (1) Organizational expectations (2) administrative support (3) mentorship and (4) barriers to scholarship in nursing and related health sciences faculty. Organizational expectations and administrative support were critical in developing and maintaining a culture of scholarship, various mentorship models improved faculty scholarship skills and productivity, while multiple barriers were found to inhibit faculty development and scholarly productivity.

CONCLUSION

The implementation of organizational, administrative, and faculty activities and interventions can promote a culture of scholarship. Further research is needed to determine which interventions are most helpful in developing health science faculty scholarship.

Teaching activities in higher medical school: innovations and management features

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the essence of innovations and their application in teaching in connection with the student’s educational outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample of the study consists of 588 third-year students of the I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University. The paper describes the use of innovations in teaching in the context of the competence-activity approach, which implements the psychological process of learning of social experience in the practice of education.

Findings

This paper reflects the content of a scientific research on a relevant topic in the field of modern education – the implementation of four innovations in teaching, the guarantee that each student masters the educational outcomes that meet the requirements of the Bologna Declaration to the quality of training of graduates and the development of competence-based education ideas. The paper presents the learning and professional activities that focus on constructing a mental image of educational outcomes in the student’s mind and independent training that focus on automating the student’s activity, with a view to solving the practical tasks of modeling socio-professional situations on the basis of the mental image in the mind.

Research limitations/implications

There are some limitations with this research. The sample is small and this makes broad generalization difficult. In total, 588 participants (both Russian and foreign) from 611 upper-year medical students of State Medical University were involved in research work. This may have functioned as a measurement ceiling. With that, all the proposed tools are universal. The authors tried to describe their specific in as much detail as possible. The findings are also consistent with the urgent publications of researchers in the field. Thus, the authors believe there will be no problems with their implementation in other medical universities.

Practical implications

The practical value of the study is that it shows medical university professors a model of teaching activities, which guarantees that each student achieves educational outcomes of the planned quality.

Originality/value

The authors propose new didactic means, which help to manage each student’s activities according to individual educational trajectory.

Establishing a Virtual Community of Practice in Simulation: The Value of Social Media

STATEMENT

Professional development opportunities are not readily accessible for most simulation educators, who may only connect with simulation experts at periodic and costly conferences. Virtual communities of practice consist of individuals with a shared passion who communicate via virtual media to advance their own learning and that of others. A nascent virtual community of practice is developing online for healthcare simulation on social media platforms. Simulation educators should consider engaging on these platforms for their own benefit and to help develop healthcare simulation educators around the world. Herein, we describe this developing virtual community of practice and offer guidance to assist educators to engage, learn, and contribute to the growth of the community.

Exploring the concept of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL): Concept analysis

Background: Researchers have contributed to the definition of SoTL; however, the literature is not conclusive on its definitions and attributes. Therefore, this study was an attempt to precisely define SoTL by its attributes, antecedents and consequences.

Methods: The Walker and Avant (2011) concept analysis method was used.

Results: The 9 emerged attributes are: Committed engagement in action, Critique-based, Disciplinary, Context-oriented, Critical enquiry process, Continuous deep reflection, Dynamic process, Shared publicly, and Learning focused.

Conclusion: This study helps promote understanding and application of SoTL.

CAEP 2016 Academic Symposium: How to have an impact as an emergency medicine educator and scholar

BACKGROUND

In a time of major medical education transformation, emergency medicine (EM) needs to nurture education scholars who will influence EM education practice. However, the essential ingredients to ensure a career with impact in EM education are not clear.

OBJECTIVE

To describe how to prepare EM educators for a high-impact career.

METHODS

The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (CAEP) Academic Section commissioned an "Education Impact" working group (IWG) to guide the creation of consensus recommendations from the EM community. EM educators from across Canada were initially recruited from the networks of the IWG members, and additional educators were recruited via snowball sampling. "High impact educators" were nominated by this network. The high impact educators were then interviewed using a structured question guide. These interviews were transcribed and coded for themes using qualitative methods. The process continued until no new themes were identified. Proposed themes and recommendations were presented to the EM community at the CAEP 2016 Academic Symposium. Feedback was then incorporated into a final set of recommendations.

RESULTS

Fifty-five (71%) of 77 of identified Canadian EM educators participated, and 170 names of high impact educators were submitted and ranked by frequency. The IWG achieved sufficiency of themes after nine interviews. Five recommendations were made: 1) EM educators can pursue a high impact career by leveraging either traditional or innovative career pathways; 2) EM educators starting their education careers should have multiple senior mentors; 3) Early-career EM educators should immerse themselves in their area of interest and cultivate a community of practice, not limited to EM; 4) Every academic EM department and EM teaching site should have access to an EM educator with protected time and recognition for their EM education scholarship; and 5) Educators at all stages should continuously compile an impact portfolio.

CONCLUSIONS

We describe a unique set of recommendations to develop educators who will influence EM, derived from a consensus from the EM community. EM leaders, educators, and aspiring educational scholars should consider how to implement this guide towards enhancing our specialty's educational mission.

Educational Scholarship and Technology: Resources for a Changing Undergraduate Medical Education Curriculum

Returning to the original emphasis of higher education, universities have increasingly recognized the value and scholarship of teaching, and medical schools have been part of this educational scholarship movement. At the same time, the preferred learning styles of a new generation of medical students and advancements in technology have driven a need to incorporate technology into psychiatry undergraduate medical education (UGME). Educators need to understand how to find, access, and utilize such educational technology. This article provides a brief historical context for the return to education as scholarship, along with a discussion of some of the advantages to this approach, as well as several recent examples. Next, the educational needs of the current generation of medical students, particularly their preference to have technology incorporated into their education, will be discussed. Following this, we briefly review the educational scholarship of two newer approaches to psychiatry UGME that incorporate technology. We also offer the reader some resources for accessing up-to-date educational scholarship for psychiatry UGME, many of which take advantage of technology themselves. We conclude by discussing the need for promotion of educational scholarship.

Does Academic Blogging Enhance Promotion and Tenure? A Survey of US and Canadian Medicine and Pediatric Department Chairs

BACKGROUND

Electronic educational (e-learning) technology usage continues to grow. Many medical journals operate companion blogs (an application of e-learning technology) that enable rapid dissemination of scientific knowledge and discourse. Faculty members participating in promotion and tenure academic tracks spend valuable time and effort contributing, editing, and directing these medical journal blogs.

OBJECTIVE

We sought to understand whether chairs of medicine and pediatric departments acknowledge blog authorship as academic achievement.

METHODS

The authors surveyed 267 chairs of US and Canadian medicine and pediatric departments regarding their attitudes toward the role of faculty participation in e-learning and blogging in the promotion and tenure process. The survey completion rate was 22.8% (61/267).

RESULTS

A majority of respondents (87%, 53/61) viewed educational scholarship as either important or very important for promotion. However, only 23% (14/61) perceived importance to faculty effort in producing content for journal-based blogs. If faculty were to participate in blog authorship, 72% (44/61) of surveyed chairs favored involvement in a journal-based versus a society-based or a personal (nonaffiliated) blog. We identified a "favorable group" of chairs (19/59, 32%), who rated leadership roles in e-learning tools as important or very important, and an "unfavorable group" of chairs (40/59, 68%), who rated leadership roles in e-learning tools as somewhat important or not important. The favorable group were more likely to be aware of faculty bloggers within their departments (58%, 11/19 vs 25%, 10/40), viewed serving on editorial boards of e-learning tools more favorably (79%, 15/19 vs 31%, 12/39), and were more likely to value effort spent contributing to journal-based blogs (53%, 10/19 vs 10%, 4/40).

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings demonstrate that although the majority of department chairs value educational scholarship, only a minority perceive value in faculty blogging effort.

Education Scholarship and its Impact on Emergency Medicine Education

Emergency medicine (EM) education is becoming increasingly challenging as a result of changes to North American medical education and the growing complexity of EM practice. Education scholarship (ES) provides a process to develop solutions to these challenges. ES includes both research and innovation. ES is informed by theory, principles and best practices, is peer reviewed, and is disseminated and archived for others to use. Digital technologies have improved the discovery of work that informs ES, broadened the scope and timing of peer review, and provided new platforms for the dissemination and archiving of innovations. This editorial reviews key steps in raising an education innovation to the level of scholarship. It also discusses important areas for EM education scholars to address, which include the following: the delivery of competency-based medical education programs, the impact of social media on learning, and the redesign of continuing professional development.

'It was serendipity': a qualitative study of academic careers in medical education

CONTEXT

Despite a demand for educational expertise in medical universities, little is known of the roles of medical educators and the sustainability of academic careers in medical education. We examined the experiences and career paths of medical educators from diverse professional backgrounds seeking to establish, maintain and strengthen their careers in medical schools.

METHODS

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 44 lead and early-career medical educators from all 21 Australian and New Zealand medical schools. Questions explored career beginnings, rewards and challenges. Transcripts underwent systematic coding and independent thematic analysis. Final themes were confirmed by iterative review and member checking. Analysis was informed by Bourdieu's concepts of field (a social space for hierarchical interactions), habitus (individual dispositions which influence social interactions) and capital (economic, symbolic, social and cultural forms of power).

RESULTS

Participants provided diverse accounts of what constitutes the practice of medical education. Serendipitous career entry and little commonality of professional backgrounds and responsibilities suggest an ambiguous habitus with ill-defined career pathways. Within the field of medicine as enacted in medical schools, educators have invisible yet essential roles, experiencing tension between service expectations, a lesser form of capital, and demands for more highly valued forms of scholarship. Participants reported increasing expectations to produce research and obtain postgraduate qualifications to enter and maintain their careers. Unable to draw upon cultural capital accrued from clinical work, non-clinician educators faced additional challenges. To strengthen their position, educators consciously built social capital through essential service relationships, capitalising on times when education takes precedence, such as curriculum renewal and accreditation.

CONCLUSIONS

Bourdieu's theory provides insight into medical educator career paths and the positioning of medical education within medical schools. Medical educators have an indistinct practice, and limited cultural capital in the form of research outputs. In order to maintain and strengthen their careers, educators must create alternative sources of capital, through fostering collaborative alliances.

Criteria for social media-based scholarship in health professions education

BACKGROUND

Social media are increasingly used in health professions education. How can innovations and research that incorporate social media applications be adjudicated as scholarship?

OBJECTIVE

To define the criteria for social media-based scholarship in health professions education.

METHOD

In 2014 the International Conference on Residency Education hosted a consensus conference of health professions educators with expertise in social media. An expert working group drafted consensus statements based on a literature review. Draft consensus statements were posted on an open interactive online platform 2 weeks prior to the conference. In-person and virtual (via Twitter) participants modified, added or deleted draft consensus statements in an iterative fashion during a facilitated 2 h session. Final consensus statements were unanimously endorsed.

RESULTS

A review of the literature demonstrated no existing criteria for social media-based scholarship. The consensus of 52 health professions educators from 20 organisations in four countries defined four key features of social media-based scholarship. It must (1) be original; (2) advance the field of health professions education by building on theory, research or best practice; (3) be archived and disseminated; and (4) provide the health professions education community with the ability to comment on and provide feedback in a transparent fashion that informs wider discussion.

CONCLUSIONS

Not all social media activities meet the standard of education scholarship. This paper clarifies the criteria, championing social media-based scholarship as a legitimate academic activity in health professions education.