Educational research and scholarship - Brainstorming, developing, and publishing together as teams

Abstract

Introduction: Collaborative educational research and scholarship is a powerful tool to help schools/colleges of pharmacy learn from and with each other to continuously improve by sharing best practices.

Commentary: There are significant advantages including developing projects with more generalizability and impact, leveraging different and complementary expertise, informal mentorship of junior faculty researchers, task sharing, and group accountability. There are also challenges such as managing multiple participants, sticking to productivity goals and timelines, and scheduling virtual meetings across multiple time zones.

Implications: For a number of years, the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy's Assessment Special Interest Group has intentionally created opportunities for new connections with the purpose of fostering scholarship projects to pursue interesting questions and engage in educational research with other like-minded colleagues. The purpose of this commentary is to share with members of the academy several practical tips for leading and engaging in group projects of educational scholarship.

Keywords: Brainstorming; Publishing; Scholarship.