Dee McGonigle - Editor in Chief Meet Our Editorial Team!

Dee McGonigle received her baccalaureate degree in nursing from Penn State University, a master's degree in nursing from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and her doctorate in Foundations of Education from the University of Pittsburgh. She is an Associate Professor of Nursing and Information Sciences & Technology (IST) at Penn State University, a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the Editor-in-Chief of the Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI). She is actively involved in integrating active and collaborative learning strategies into traditional as well as on-line courses. Dr. McGonigle is interested in the educational impact of the human-technology interface. She is committed to the insightful analysis of ethical dilemmas brought on by this volatile information age. Dr. McGonigle has co-authored a textbook, Nursing Informatics and the Foundation of Knowledge that was published by Jones and Bartlett in August of 2008 and a second text on teaching with technology is in progress. She is a consultant to the Hartford Center grant at University Park and has developed a doctoral level course on teaching with technology, assisted with the recruitment videos and moderates the Hartford Center Radio Shows. She is searching for a way to facilitate translation by helping those who know (researchers) and those who do (clinicians) communicate and share. Dr. McGonigle's current area of interest is in the diffusion of innovative technologies, especially those impacting learning..

Jack Yensen - Editor in Charge Jack is in Charge of E-learning Topics!

Jack YensenJack Yensen has been involved in online education ever since 1970, when he first experimented with simulations on mainframes. When personal computers arrived he abandoned (almost) mainframes and time sharing and immersed himself in programming and databases. When networking started to happen, he got involved in very early email and telnet applications, and then realized in 1992 that he could enhance classroom courses and reach students globally using an FTP server to simulate a Web server, when the web first started. Now he has courses and servers and websites all over the place. Every year he visits many campuses and gives presentations and workshops on online or eLearning and shows faculty and staff how to extend courseware functionality (like WebCT and Blackboard), using Java, Flash, HotMedia, streaming audio and video and collaboration or groupware like Teamwave, Webex, & Placeware. He is also a management consultant in healthcare, assisting corporate clients to design and implement virtual universities. Jack has been involved in health and nursing informatics since 1975.

eLearning

I am totally fascinated with trying to understand the complex processes of learning in order that I can apply any insights to the equally complex field of teaching. Since the early 90s I have been tracking and experimenting with eLearning and instructional objects, employing multimedia and interactivity as essential aspects of online learning and understand that this whole spectrum of web enhanced and web delivered learning will completely change the way we think about learning and teaching. We are looking forward to generating a hotbed of discussion and articles and instructional objects to support the evolving discipline of nursing informatics.

June Kaminski - Editor in Charge June is in Charge of Virtual Nursing Practice and Culture Topics!

June Kaminski June received her Bachelors and Masters of Science in Nursing at the University of BC and supplemented these with upper level and graduate courses in Computer Programming and Applications in Education. She became interested in nursing informatics in 1986 as the Medical-Surgical ward trainer for nurses being orientated to the new Hospital Information System in Vancouver. Helping nurses learn to integrate computer use into their nursing practice became a fascination of which June has dedicated many hours towards ever since. Since 1989, June has worked as Nursing Faculty and Curriculum Coordinator at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia. She is also a PhD Candidate in the Faculty of Curriculum Studies and Technology Education at the University of British Columbia. Her doctoral dissertation is focused on how nursing faculty perceive the dis/allowing of a cuilture for nursing informatics within nursing education.

June developed integrated curriculum for Nursing Informatics for all BSN students at Kwantlen in the early 1990s and continues to update it annually at http://nursing-informatics.com/kwantlen. June is also Editor in Chief and Designer of the Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics. and the President of the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association as well as Director of Communications. She is also Vice President, Programs for the Sigma Theta Tau Honor Society of Nursing, Xi Eta Chapter As well, June developed a web environment to promote professional development in nursing informatics competency for practicing nurses, viewable at nursng-informatics.com She also engages in freelance web design work - hygeia-design.com and research and curriculum design in First Nations Pedagogy.

Virtual Nursing Practice and Culture

The virtual environment is evolving into a context for professional collaboration, content exchange, mentorship and creative endeavors. Cyberspace is becoming an accessible place for the building of intellectual assets, where knowledge can be effectively identified, distributed and shared with peers. Nursing professionals are joining this growing evolution in a number of different ways. Nursing research and experiential papers focused on the use of virtual environments in these contexts provide insight into this developing phenomenon. Communities can amplify innovation when groups become aware of what they can do online, they go beyond problem-solving and start inventing together. Nursing informatics is advanced by exploring the ways that nurses are shaping and contributing to the virtual environment as professionals, peers, disseminators of health information and client education, researchers, advocates and activists. This focus also illuminates the culture that permeates and fuels these activities, and supports ways to identify, describe and cultivate a culture of nursing informatics using the online environment as a context.

The use of the virtual environment for actual nursing practice is another aspect of nursing informatics. Client teaching, assessment, interdisciplinary care collaboration, project design and management, counseling and other forms of delivering nursing related activities are all relevant. As well, the application of nursing knowledge to online health information, illustrating how nurses can function as authors, web designers and accountable conveyors of accurate online health information all contribute to the application of nursing informatics to the virtual environment.

MEET THE REST OF THE TEAM!