nurse-educator Project Information
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1. Submitter: nurseeducator

2. Project UNIX Name: nurse-educator

3. Project Descriptive Name: Nurse Educator & Researcher

4. License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

License other: 

5. Project Description: Collaborative effort to develop and share 
nursing education and research materials using OpenOffice.org and MS-Office 
presentation software, including:  lectures, notes, and study guides 
using Open Source licensing.

6. Registration Description: To be honest, this may actually constitute 
'software' but I have preferred to submit without making that a strong 
assumption. If it would be more appropriately treated as 'software' 
please do so.
 

This project will allow nurse educators to collaboratively develop 
teaching/learning/research materials under Open Source licensing. The 
objective is to encourage and enable nursing educators to maximize the 
utility of computers in education and research by stimulating the 
development, refinement, and improvement of educational 'software' materials so 
that nurse educators can maximize their time presenting and improving on 
these materials rather than developing such materials in isolation. The 
project will be hosted in English though translations of materials to 
other languages will be encouraged.



Such a project could spur a significant shift in nursing educator's 
understanding of computers, open source licensing, and Open Source 
software development processes, leading them to use these materials and other 
Open Source software products in their educational and research 
activities. Most nursing educators are uncomfortable with using computers in 
the classroom and find it difficult to develop and use software such as 
PowerPoint/Presentation to greatest advantage. By providing a setting 
in which Open Source educational and research 'software' materials such 
as Concept mapping software, writing aids, PowerPoint/Presentation 
files, SimMan case study packages, qualitative and quantitative analysis 
tools, and lecture files could be developed and shared among colleagues, 
nursing educators would be able to access a high grade: of Open Source 
software and lecture materials and research aids, modify them for their 
own use, share the improvements they have made, and reduce the costs of 
acquiring proprietary materials that may be unduly restricted or 
inefficiently packaged by extant copyright holders and proprietary 
distributors. By preparing materials that could be used to develop course and 
research websites and in the dissemination of educational and research 
content, this site could significantly improve the level of collaboration 
between nursing educators and researchers, reducing the impact of 
nursing shortages and specifically ameliorating the impact of nursing 
educator shortages that are reaching critical proportions and reducing access 
to nursing programs and inhibiting the flow of students into and 
through nursing programs. 


As most people are aware there is a significant shortage of registered 
nurses across the world. As well, there is a shortage of nursing 
faculty and many current faculty are expected to retire shortly. Some of the 
people due to retire are among the most well-known, well-respected, and 
well-skilled nursing educators that have ever lived. The loss of their 
knowledge and expertise would be a serious loss to nursing and humanity 
but it is happening for lack of a collaborative environment in which 
they could share their knowledge and experience and contribute to the 
development of materials to improve the quality and quantity of 
educational and research tools available to younger nursing faculty and nursing 
students.


All the materials will be distributed under the GPL so that experts in 
nursing, medicine, biology, anatomy, pharmacy, statisticians, 
qualitative researchers, and students could contribute to the improvement of 
materials. Authors, artists, programmers, and educators would be welcome 
to help in this project.