It's been a while now since Jim Amos, George Dawson, and I started POLL, our free online journal club, where we post an open access article, and ask for discussion.
At first, we were posting our articles on our respective blogs, but then, with some discussion and show of interest, we switched to LinkedIn as a venue, thinking it would be more professional, and could encourage a larger audience. We tried to keep up at the rate of a new article each week, with credit mostly to Jim Amos, but that was a bit much to manage. So then we moved to every other week.
Unfortunately, with the exception of one or two instances, no one was participating in the discussions. I don't know if people weren't interested in the particular articles, or the questions weren't evocative enough, or the venue wasn't working, or we weren't doing enough to promote it, or any of a number of reasons I haven't thought of.
I don't want to give up the idea of on online journal club, because I think it's a perfect venue, and a great way to demonstrate an interest in lifelong learning without shelling out thousands of dollars for meaningless CME.
So I am really, genuinely asking for people's opinions. Are you interested in an online journal club? If so, why, and if not, why not? What venue are you interested in-LinkedIn, individual blogs, twitter, a separate blog, facebook, other suggestions? What would be the function of an online journal club, for you? What topics would you like to see covered? Who would you like to see participate? Who would you like to select the articles? Would you like to be involved in selecting the articles? Should there be separate journal clubs for separate topics? What should the frequency be?
I'm not sending out another survey, because they're so sparsely responded to that it isn't useful. But I really think this is a great opportunity for people with common interests to have open discussions about important professional topics. So please make your voice heard and comment.
Thanks.