International Partnerships
Current overseas links
Below are countries which the School has current partnership links:
Bosnia
Canada
China
Denmark
Finland
Germany
Ghana
Hungary
Japan
Jordan
Malaysia
Singapore
St Helena
Taiwan
Thailand
Uganda
USA (Kansas)
USA (Washington)
Zambia
Queen's nursing students and the International Community Health Needs Assessment Project
A FIPSE/EU International Community Network Project
A special study module has been developed that engages nursing students in the school of nursing and midwifery, with nursing students in universities in USA (Washburn Kansas, Boston, Utah and Texas) and in Europe (Finland and Portugal). The project initially funded by a large FIPSE/EU grant (EU-US Cooperation Programme in Higher Education and Vocational Education Training) facilitates nursing students to study the common international public health module at their home institution or abroad. Students value the project as it encourages debate on public health nursing issues within a global context and the opportunity of sharing experiences with nursing students from other countries. The project has extended to include major international public health nursing research conferences which have been held in Savonlinna Finland in 2000, Queen’s University Belfast in 2002 and Washburn University Kansas, USA in 2004 with the next conference due to take place in Savonlinna, Finland in 2007.
IVINURS - the International Virtual Nursing School
Queen’s University Belfast is one of the founding partners of IVINURS and Professor Jean Orr, Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery has been co-opted onto the Board of Directors.
The IVINURS vision is of a web-based collaborative venture involving leading edge nursing schools, institutions and healthcare providers, offering local access to the best in nursing education worldwide. It is an initiative that recognises the growing trend towards the use of distance learning in nurse education, the emergence of the new e-learning technologies and a global consensus that nursing is a practice-based discipline. The venture will incorporate a combination of e-learning, distance learning and on-campus learning, giving access for students of partner nursing schools to a blended learning experience.
Founding Partners are listed below:
| Chiang Mai University Mid Jutland Schools of Nursing Napier University Queen's University Belfast University of Dundee University of Maryland University of Southampton University of York |
Thailand Denmark Scotland Northern Ireland Scotland USA England England |
The use of reusable learning objects - instructional design for the future
The use of RLOs offers a number of important advantages and contributes to meeting the many challenges facing education of healthcare professionals today. Reusable learning objects (RLOs) are small discrete self-contained ‘chunks’ of learning from which courses can be built. RLOs may be in the form of short video clips, pieces of text or animated diagrams. The RLOs can be retrieved, combined, and/or re-purposed to be used in a wide range of learning situations in different instructional contexts. They may include student interactions. RLOs can be shared widely and can be updated easily. Adoption of international standards for attaching metadata to the objects ensures maximum interoperability between different institutions.
Advantages of using RLOS
- Customisation to the needs of institutions. Institutions can share resources and construct programmes to meet their own needs using selected learning objects and adapting these as necessary.
- Customisation to meet the needs of the learner - ‘just for you’ learning. Learning programmes can be designed to meet the needs of individual learners based on their prior knowledge and ability, preferred learning strategy and style of learning.
- Availability of learning materials at the appropriate time - ‘just in time’ learning. Learners can have access to the right material, at the right place and at the right time.
- Ease of updating. Individual elements within courses and programmes can be updated easily by replacing individual learning objects as it becomes necessary.
Undergraduate Nursing Multinational Research Study
The School of Nursing and Midwifery at Queens have been lead investigators in a multinational research study with Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, USA and La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. The study explored the smoking behaviour of nursing students in three countries and their perceptions of their health promotion role in tobacco control.
The research findings are disseminated in the following publications:
McCann, T., Clark, E. and Rowe K (2005) Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Attitudes Towards Smoking, Health Promotion Nursing and Health Sciences 7, 164-174.
Clark, E., McCann T., Rowe, K. and Lazenbatt A (2004) Cognitive Dissonance and Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Knowledge of, and Attitudes about Smoking, Journal of Advanced Nursing 46 (6) 584-594.
