The Evolution of a Professional Practice Forum: Balancing peer to peer learning with course objectives

Background: The Opioid Treatment Accreditation Course (OTAC) is a mandatory accreditation requirement in New SouthWales, Australia, and aims to prepare medical practitioners for the provision of safe and effective Opioid Substitution Treatmentto people with opioid dependence. The course has a strong focus on safe prescribing practices and the course design includes aProfessional Practice Forum that is engaging for participants and effective at imparting complex ideas and concepts that do notplace additional time constraints on already time-poor health professionals.Objective: The study aimed to use participatory action research methods to develop and evaluate an online Professional PracticeForum that is a key component of the OTAC teaching and learning experience.Methods: Three evaluation cycles were implemented with three cohorts of participants (N=40) to inform the design and reviewof the updated OTAC course. Overall, the study relied on participatory action research methods to enhance a sense of onlinecommunity and to revise the Professional Practice Forum component of the course. Findings from survey feedback and anexamination of Web metrics were used to monitor participant learning and were subsequently subject to thematic analysis inorder to identify key themes.Results: The use of participatory action techniques in the redesign of the OTAC course was a successful means of engagingwith participants and resulted in four revisions based on feedback from facilitators and participants. The Professional PracticeForum was rated highly and received positive feedback from both moderators and participants. Conclusions: The use of interactive forums in online learning in an educational module for adult learners can prove extremelyvaluable as a means for participants to share their expertise and improve their learning outcomes. In particular, the use of stickyand welcome threads were significant features that enhanced interactions between participants and facilitators and resulted inincreased quantity and quality of postings. These findings can help inform future researchers on how to develop peer engagementmodules that are amenable to assessment and that build an online sense of community.