Doctors urgently need guidance, training, and fully compliant channels for sharing sensitive data

BackgroundSocial media can support and sustain communities much better than previous generations of learning technologies, where institutional barriers undermined any initiatives for embedding formal and informal learning. Some of the many types of social media have already had an impact on student learning, based on empirical evidence. One of these, social networking, has the potential to support communication in formal and informal spaces.ObjectiveIn this paper we report on the evaluation of an institutional social network—King's Social Harmonisation Project (KINSHIP)—established to foster an improved sense of community, enhance communication, and serve as a space to model digital professionalism for students at King’s College London, United Kingdom.MethodsOur evaluation focused on a study that examined students’ needs and perceptions with regard to the provision of a cross-university platform. Data were collected from students, including those in the field of health and social care, in order to recommend a practical way forward to address current needs in this area.ResultsThe findings indicate that the majority of the respondents were positive about using a social networking platform to develop their professional voice and profiles. Results suggest that timely promotion of the platform, emphasis on interface and learning design, and a clear identity are required in order to gain acceptance as the institutional social networking site.ConclusionsEmpirical findings in this study project an advantage of an institutional social network such a KINSHIP over other social networks (eg, Facebook) because access is limited to staff and students and the site is mainly being used for academic purposes.

In this paper we report on the evaluation of an institutional social network (KINSHIP) whose aims were to foster an improved sense of community, enhance communication and serve as a space to model digital professionalism for students at King's College London, UK. Our evaluation focused on a pilot where students' needs with regard to the provision of a cross-institution platform and perceptions were examined. Empirical findings in this study project an advantage of KINSHIP compared to commercial social networks, as it is exclusively accessible by students and staff from the institution and mainly being used for academic purposes. Ongoing development and evolution of functionality in step with commercial platforms, improved accessibility via redeveloping the platform as a mobile application and addressing privacy concerns raised by the students about potential monitoring by staff or the institution would also be essential if such an institutional platform were to be a success.

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From my recent experience of teaching and assessing, and attending national and international medical education conferences, it has become clear to me that the ease of search and replication, occasional absence of details such as date, copyright notice or an obvious author, coupled with the fact that Google is a search engine and not a repository of free images, is poorly understood by clinical students, clinicians and academics alike. All are arguably aware of the implications of plagiarism and the importance of permission and acknowledgement for the contribution made in research and publications.