The Delphi technique is a suitable method for establishing collective agreement in the design of radiography educational interventions. Additional research is needed to deepen this evidence-based knowledge.

Sustainable growth in the Allied Health Professions (AHP) workforce is an ambition of the United Kingdom’s NHS Long Term Plan. However historically, access to good quality placements has been a barrier to increasing pre-registration training numbers. This article focuses on work carried out by Health Education England (HEE) to gain insights on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on capacity. Using a pragmatic, embedded mixed-methods approach, insights were gathered using an online workshop, crowdsourcing, open for two weeks in the summer of 2020. AHP placement stakeholders could vote, share ideas or comment. Descriptive data were extracted, and comments made were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Participants (N = 1,800) made over 8,500 comments. The themes identified included: diversity of placement opportunity, improved placement coordination, a more joined-up system, supervision models and educator capacity. Alongside considering the challenges to placement capacity, several areas of innovative practice owing to the pandemic were highlighted. Generated insights have shaped the aims and objectives of the Health Education (HEE) pre-registration AHP student practice learning programme for 2020/2021 and beyond. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the delivery of AHP placements. In the absence of face-to-face activities, crowdsourcing provided an online data collection tool offering stakeholders an opportunity to engage with the placement capacity agenda and share learning. Findings have shaped the HEE approach to short-term placement recovery and long-term growth.

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Introduction: Stakeholder participation in healthcare curriculum design is an important aspect of higher education with stakeholders including students, staff members, clinical partners, healthcare organisations, patients and members of the public. Significantly, student co-creation, of the curriculum , has become increasingly important. Yet there is limited research which addresses how to engage this group in design processes. Methods: This paper represents the first phase of a three stage action research spiral whereby the authors evaluated the use of a novel tool for curriculum design processes, anonymised crowdsourcing. This initial phase was open to all students enrolled on an undergraduate diagnostic radiography programme in the UK. To confirm the reliability of the crowdsource design an established eight point crowdsourcing verification tool was applied. Results: Twenty-three unique ideas were generated by participants, 40 comments made and 173 votes cast. Inductive analysis of the comments generated five themes. These included: the role of technology enhanced learning; simulation activities; patient focused curriculum; mental wealth (resilience) authentic assessment approaches. An evaluation of those who had and had not engaged highlighted areas of improvement for the administration of the second and third iterations which will include a wider pool of participants. Conclusion:This study from a single programme offers lessons for others wishing to adopt and develop the approach elsewhere. Implications for practice: Several ideas elicited by the crowdsource have been considered by the curriculum design team and will be implemented in the 2020 curriculum thus demonstrating the impact on local education practice of this research approach.

Objectives: Crowdsourcing works through an institution outsourcing a function normally performed by an employee or group of individuals. Within a crowdsource users, known as the crowd, form a community who voluntarily undertake a task which involves the pooling of knowledge resources. A literature review was undertaken to identify how the tool is being used in health professions education, and potential for use in radiography education. Key findings: 17 papers were returned. Literature identified was assessed against an established crowdsourcing definition. Reviewing these yielded four themes for discussion: student selection procedures, lesson planning, teaching materials and assessment. Conclusion: Crowdsourcing is associated with innovative activities through collective solution seeking via a large network of users. It is increasingly being adopted in healthcare training and maybe transferable to educational activities within the field of radiography education.