A live workshop after two-and-a-half years
I recently did a live workshop at the King George’s Medical University, Lucknow. We covered Literature Searching in PubMed and Cochrane Library, and also Mendeley for Reference Management. It was wonderful doing one after a gap of two-and-a-half years. It is great when students/residents want a photograph with you. Getting such a request from them is a privilege. It feels wonderful when people tell you how much they learnt and how they look forward to revising/learning more from the “qmedcourses.in” website.
How did the workshop happen at KGMU?
I had done a shorter session in KGMU in the year 2016. At that time QMed was invited to another institution in Lucknow to conduct a preconference workshop. We took the opportunity to ask KGMU if they wanted a brief workshop and they agreed.
This year when KGMU wanted to have an event for the National Library Day they remembered the earlier workshop and wanted to host a full day session! They had obviously appreciated the need for this learning, and valued what we offered!
Action – after the session
Within five days, 50 people have enrolled for the ELearning courses – and 46 of them are UG students! Considering that only two UG students attended the live workshop, this probably means that the two have motivated so many others. This is very encouraging as QMed strongly feels that this learning should happen during the UG days.
The Vice Chancellor expressed keen interest in our courses
I cherished the fact that the Vice Chancellor told me that he wished he could have attended the workshop! I told him that KGMU would get access to the E-Learning site as they had organized the workshop and he could learn from there. He was very happy to know this and said he would go through the videos
It reinforces the fact that literature searching and referencing are not taught in most places, and even at senior levels one needs to learn. I appreciate the VC’s expressing this.
Our learning
If we can do a workshop first and offer the online learning option in an institution – there appears to be a bigger chance of many more being interested in learning. We hope this approach happens a lot more, especially as now the working spaces have opened up. Do share your views with us.
