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Nurse Education in Practice 12 (2012) 65e71

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Nurse Education in Practice

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/nepr

Much ado about the flu: Design and implementation of an e-role play for a largeclass of undergraduate students

Jane Warland*, Colleen Smith 1, Morgan Smith 2

School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of South Australia City East Campus, North Terrace, Adelaide 5000, South Australia, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Accepted 14 July 2011

Keywords:Online role playLow fidelity simulationNurse education

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ61 8 8302 1161; faxE-mail addresses: jane.warland@unisa.edu.au (J. W

edu.au (C. Smith), morgan.smith@unisa.edu.au (M. Sm1 Tel.: þ61 8 8302 2038; fax: þ61 8 830 22168.2 Tel.: þ61 8 8302 1515; fax: þ61 8 830 22168.

1471-5953/$ e see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2011.07.004

a b s t r a c t

Role play in a face-to-face setting is becoming widely accepted as a useful pedagogy in nurse education.However, online e-role play i.e. role play which occurs using an electronic medium, is less well used,particularly with large classes. This paper will discuss the design and implementation of an online e-roleplay for a large class (n ¼ 414) of undergraduate Nursing and Midwifery students. It describes therationale for the use of this method and the expected learning outcomes followed by detail about howthe e-role play was designed. It also discusses challenges faced in implementing this learning activitywith a large group of students and then outlines student and staff evaluation of the e-role play. Finallylessons learned and implications for using this pedagogy in nurse education are considered.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background

Nursing graduates require skills in collaboration, communicationand reflection to enable them to work effectively with other healthprofessionals and to deliver quality health care (Coeling and Cukr,2000; Kalisch et al. 2007). However, the opportunities to developthese skills in the clinical setting maybe limited particularly when,there are largenumbers of students, anoff campus cohort and limitedclinical placement opportunities (Barnett et al., 2008). The use of e-role play as one approach among other teaching and learningmethods, can facilitate student engagement in their learning,encourage group decision making and negotiation, build trustbetween students, and promote reflection (Bos and Shami, 2006).

Simulation including role play have been accepted as a usefulpedagogy in face-to-face nursing education. The burgeoning liter-ature on the use and pedagogical underpinnings of role play istestament to this fact, for example Cant and Cooper 2010, Blandet al. 2010, Warland 2011. However, with advances in online tech-nologies, the popularity of e-role play in education is also gainingmomentum. This is because it can be used to foster skills such ascritical thinking (Libin et al., 2010) and can also be delivered toa large student cohort at minimal cost (Burns, O’Donnell andArtman, 2010). This paper will discuss the design and imple-mentation of an online e-role play for a large class (n ¼ 414) of

: þ61 8 830 22168.arland), colleen.smith@unisa.ith).

All rights reserved.

undergraduate Nursing and Midwifery students. It discusses chal-lenges faced and implications for using this pedagogy in nurseeducation and also outlines student and staff evaluation of thee-role play.

The design

The specific challenges in context for this e-role play were thatthe learning activity needed to cater for on campus (face-to-face)and off campus (distance) students, third year midwifery, and firstyear nursing students. Additionally we had a large teaching team of13 faculty members some with as few as 25 students (one tutorialgroup) others with as many as 75 (in three tutorial groups).

The e-role play aimed to provide an experiential learningactivity for this diverse range of students that would enable them todemonstrate the achievement of course objectives. These objec-tives primarily focused on students acquiring an understanding ofprimary health care principles and the role of the Registered Nurse/Midwife in disease prevention, containment and address commu-nity concern in the context of an influenza pandemic. An e-role playprovides a scenario and a set of roles that students adopt in order tosolve a problem, create something, or explore an issue (Ip andWills,2002). In the case of this e-role play the issue explored was thenurse/midwife’s response to an influenza pandemic and the itemcreated was a community action plan.

Students began the e-role play with a week long ‘briefing stage’.During this time they attended an on campus workshop and weregiven a lecture specific to the e-role play including, general infor-mation, aims and objectives, and expected learning outcomes.

J. Warland et al. / Nurse Education in Practice 12 (2012) 65e7166

During this briefing stage students were asked to orientate them-selves to the e-role play online environment, which includedspecific information about its purpose and step-by-step instruc-tions for Moodle (a Learning management system (LMS) withwhich the students were not familiar). They were also asked tocomplete background reading, to be familiar with their own roleand the other ‘players’ roles, as well as the essential aspects of thescenario.

All of the roles had a public and private persona. The publicpersona provides information for how the person is seenpublicallyetheir approximate age, occupation, publically known views andinterests. All students had access to this information. Studentsplaying specific roles were also given a private persona which gavesome background about the role they were playing including, theirrole’s views about flu immunisation, current concerns, and alle-giances or personality differences with other ’players’. This privatepersona was only available to students undertaking that role togive some insight into how their charactermight respond during thee-role play experience.

There were six roles played by students representing typicalhospital and community nurse stakeholder positions including a:

1. Director of nursing, residential aged care facility2. General Practise (GP) nurse3. Community midwife4. Hospital occupational health nurse5. Hospital infection control nurse6. Community health nurse

In order to manage the large number of students (n ¼ 414) theyparticipated in the e-role play in their tutorial groups or onlinediscussion groups with their faculty member, who was also playinga role facilitating the activity. The e-role play design is depictedgraphically in Fig. 1. The project team designed the online envi-ronment and acted as resource people for faculty. The six stake-holder roles were distributed between each group of 25 students.This resulted in four or five students being allocated to each role.Students met ‘behind the scenes’ to discuss their proposed postsand to develop their role’s contribution to the action plan. Onestudent from each stakeholder team then posted the agreed post tothe e-role play.

The e-role play consisted of an asynchronous online discussionwhich took place over a period of 10 days in October 2009. Set inCockatoo Rest, an imaginary town in rural Australia, the e-role playcommenced with a fictitious newsflash concerning the death ofa local businessman. When it was later discovered that this deathwas Cockatoo Rest’s first swine flu victim, a meeting of local nurses

Fig. 1. e-role play design interaction pathways for one group of 25 students.

and midwives was called by the ‘Department of Health’ to developa nursing action plan to respond to local community concern.

Over the course of the e-role play (10 days) each group ofstudents playing a role made several posts. The behind the scenesinteraction allowed students who were playing the same role todiscuss their character’s response to what was occurring on the e-role play. This behind the scenes meeting could either be face-to-face or online. Students could choose to communicate usinga number of electronic media including email, Skype, MSN, Facebook, Twitter etc.

The e-role play occurred mid-way through the course. Thismeant that students were already assigned to their tutorial/discussion groups and were well established in these groups. Inorder to ensure anonymity (one of the hallmarks of an online e-roleplay (Cornelius et al., 2009), the university LMS could not be usedbecause student would be identified in the system. Rather thancreate more than 400 temporary false University logins, the e-roleplay was hosted by ‘EdNA groups’ (http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/), a ‘Moodle’ platform.

Each group of 25 students and their faculty was allocated theirown online e-role play environment. Once one Moodle platformwas established with all roles, and electronic resources it wasduplicated 17 times to cover the number of tutorial/online discus-sion groups required. Each of the 17 mirror sites had its ownindividual login and each group of 25 students could only accessone site. It would not be possible, for example, for a student allo-cated to group 8 to login to group 1 (see Fig. 2). Just as is the case inface-to-face role play, each of the 17 e-role plays proceeded a littledifferently with some groups progressing more quickly or takingdifferent directions than others. Each produced a differentcommunity action plan as a result.

Debriefing after any form of simulation, including role play isconsidered to be vital (Fanning and Gabba, 2007). This is whenplayers relinquish their roles and discuss what it was like to playthat role, share critical moments and analyse what happenedduring the role play and why. It is also a time when students canreflect on what was learnt, draw parallels to real life and considerimplications of the community action plan they created. Allstudents, whether on or off campus, undertook the debriefing stagein their tutorial groups either online or face-to-face.

In preparation for their debriefing they were asked to writea short reflective piece which they brought to their next tutorial orposted online. They were asked to consider their response to thefollowing questions:

Fig. 2. e-role play design login pathways.

J. Warland et al. / Nurse Education in Practice 12 (2012) 65e71 67

� What happened in the e-role play?� How did you feel during the e-role play?� Do you consider the needs of your persona were met? Why orWhy not?

� Do you think there was a good outcome from the meeting?� Was consensus achieved for the community action plan? Whyor Why not?

Students did not have their participation in the e-role playdirectly assessed. However, two weeks after its completionstudents were required to produce a written assessment itemexplaining how their participation in the e-role play assisted themto understand the role of the RN/RM in infectious disease preven-tion, disease containment and addressing community concern.They were also asked to use examples from their own posts andthose of others to support their explanation.

Method(s) of evaluative data collection and analysis

As this was the first time this type of learning activity had beentrialled in the School we offered participants an opportunity tocomplete an evaluative survey. Two online surveys were adminis-tered, one to students the other to faculty. Prior to their adminis-tration, ethics approval was sought and gained from theUniversity’s Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC).

The student survey was adapted from the Australasian Survey ofStudent Engagement (AUSSE) framework (ACER, 2009). It consistedof statements aimed at gaining information about studentperception in five areas, namely: level of academic challenge(including perception of time), student interaction with faculty,active and collaborative learning enriching educational experienceand knowledge and skill development. Students were asked toindicate their level of agreement on 5 point Likert scales, rangingfrom strongly agree to strongly disagree. Two open-ended ques-tions specifically asked students to provide comment about theirperceptions of the e-role play’s strengths and weaknesses. Manystudents did not respond to these 2 questions. Those who didrespond, tended to elaborate on the five main areas asked about inthe Likert responses. Typical student responses both positive andnegative, are reported in the results section below along with thepercentage responses to the Likert scales.

Survey results

143 students responded (response rate¼ 34%). Responses to thestudent survey are given in Fig. 3 and Table 1 and will be furtherdiscussed here. Staff survey results will follow.

Fig. 3. Student response to perception of time spent questions: Q1: Over the “interaction phin preparation for posts? Q2: Over the “interaction phase of the e-role play, how many hou

Perception of time spent

We asked students to indicate their level of preparedness for thee-role play and how long they considered they spent on theirpreparation (Fig. 3). There was a range of estimates of time spent,two students actually admitted they spent no time at all in theinteraction phase and 17 estimating they spent more than 8 h. Moststudents (n ¼ 99) said they spent between one to 4 h during the 10days. This is not a large amount of time as we allocated 40 h (basedon University’s stated student workload for this 9 unit course) onthe entire e-role play activity.

Student interaction with faculty

The design required faculty to facilitate the e-role play in role.We were particularly interested in student perception of interac-tion with faculty considering the large numbers of students andfaculty members involved. Seven questions were asked regardingstudent interaction with faculty (see table one). These questionsincluded broad interaction such as attending a lecture and readingonline instructions as well as more detail about their perceivedlevel of interaction with their own faculty member during thee-role play. We received positive as well as negative comments:

the lecturer’s motivation towards the participants was fairly strongas we were encouraged and guided throughout the course.I felt supported. Jack [Faculty] was approachable throughout theperiod

Another students felt less well supported or perhaps evenunsure of their faculty member’s role:

I am not sure how much Jack was required to participate andthought towards the end that perhaps he was observing toomuch. Ifelt I could have done with more guidance on what was requiredover the fortnight.

Active and collaborative learning

Wewere interested in how the design of the e-role play fosteredactive and collaborative learning from both the perspective ofstudents and faculty. Students were asked eight questions todetermine their view on how the e-role play facilitated collabora-tion and communication and a wide ranging response wasreceived. They gave broad agreement to the statements that thee-role play required them to utilise effective communication skills(74%) and role adoption (71%). Some students (n ¼ 35) commentedon the strength of the role play. These comments centred around

ase” of the e-role play, how many hours did you spend gathering and reading resourcesrs did you spend logging in, reading other peoples posts and posting yourself?

Table 1Summary of Likert responses to student survey.

Strongly Agree/Agree n ¼ (%) Strongly Disagree/Disagree n ¼ (%)

Student interaction with FacultyThe online instructions on accessing Moodle were helpful 105 (73%) 21 (15%)The lecture in the workshop on the e-role play was

helpful (10 students did not attend)75 (52%) 32 (22%)

I found the resources and information on the “e-roleplay” site helped me prepare

94 (66%) 27 (19%)

It was clear to me what I was required to do for the e-role play 68 (47.5%) 46 (32%)The links between the e-role play and assessment were clear 88 (61.5%) 28 (20%)I felt my tutor contributed as much as I did to the e-role play 95 (66%) 26 (18%)The debriefing session gave me an opportunity to reflect on the

experience of participating in the e-role play78 (54.5%) 25 (17%)

Active and Collaborative LearningThe e-role play required that I utilise effective communication

techniques when communicating with other group members106 (74%) 25 (17%)

The e-role play assisted me to further understandmy communication style

83 (58%) 33 (23%)

My ability to work in collaboration and cooperation with othershas increased through participating in the e-role play

66 (46%) 45 (31%)

Communication with other students playing my character was easy 52 (36%) 74 (52%)Other students sharing my role contributed equally 56 (39%) 78 (54.5%)I valued the opportunity to contribute anonymously to the e-role play 89 (62%) 27 (19%)I successfully adopted the persona (got into the role) of my Character 102 (71%) 18 (13%)The e-role play provided me with the time to think about and research

my role’s response84 (59%) 29 (20%)

Enriching Educational ExperienceMy IT skills have been developed and extended 50 (35%) 67 (47%)I had difficulty logging in to the moodle environment 29 (20%) 102 (71%)I had difficulty navigating in the moodle environment 24 (17%) 100 (70%)I appreciated the opportunity to be able to edit and delete my role’s posts 100 (70%) 12 (8%)I felt more comfortable participating online than I would

in a face-to-face role play71 (50%) 45 (31%)

Skill DevelopmentThe e-role play assisted me to understand the role of the RN/RM in disease

prevention, containment, & addressing community concern in responseto an influenza outbreak

100 (70%) 25 (17%)

The e-role play assisted me to describe primary health care principlesin the context of an influenza pandemic

87 (61%) 38 (27%)

The e-role play gave me the opportunity to practise problem solvingin a real-world context

87 (61%) 42 (29%)

The e-role play assisted me to learn how to apply theoretical principles(such as epidemiology, primary health care) to nursing/midwifery practice

80 (56%) 36 (25%)

Percents not totalling 100 are from students having a neutral opinion.

J. Warland et al. / Nurse Education in Practice 12 (2012) 65e7168

building communication skills, and understanding their future RNrole as well as specific strengths of the e-role play design whichwere felt to enhance collaborative learning e.g.:

It was an excellent environment for those individual’s that dislikepublic speaking as it gave everyone the opportunity to participate.Communicating and collaborating in a group gave me an oppor-tunity to extend these skills, which will be needed in my futurenursing career.time to think about responses and research answers - which wouldnot be possible if it was face-to-face.

This section also drew quite strong disagreement that the e-roleplay enabled easy communication (52%) and equal contribution(54.5%) from their peers.

Group tasks are hopeless when people don’t contribute equally!VERY frustrating!I wasted many hours on this trying to collaborate with a group thatwas not interested.

This section also asked students to comment on their viewof thevalue of anonymity. In spite of the fact that 62% agreed that theyappreciated the opportunity to contribute to the e-role playanonymously some still did feel some doubt about the safety ofmaking comments “in role” e.g.:

It was hard playing an aggressive character and trying to staywithin University guidelines of discussion group etiquette. I hopeother students realised the comments I made were part of thecharacter being played and not the student making them.

Students were asked to comment on the value of the debriefwith 54.5% agreeing that it was useful. However, one studentrealised too late the value of the debrief:

I realise now that the debrief was meant to be an important part ofthe experience but I didn’t actually contribute to it on the discus-sion board because I didn’t have to, so maybe that should becompulsory.

Enriching educational experience

How the e-role play design assisted students with the devel-opment of IT skills was also explored. We asked a set of five ques-tions regarding the students’ view of whether or not the e-role playdeveloped their IT skills. Perhaps not surprisingly, the students didnot find any difficulty navigating the LMS even though theywere allunfamiliar with this platform. Neither did many consider theydeveloped or even extended their IT skills (see Table 1). However,students did appreciate the flexibility of the online environment:

J. Warland et al. / Nurse Education in Practice 12 (2012) 65e71 69

Interesting task using an unusual method of interaction - good tobe able to do it at anytime from anywhere.

Some disliked the LMS chosen, others clearly knew the systemand didn’t appreciate the assistance offered in how to use it:

Travelling 7 h to hear someone talking about how to use moodlewas a complete waste of time.The layout made it difficult to follow the conversations. In my groupwe had 56 posts in just one section so it was hard to refer back tofor the assignment [assessment task].

Others recognised that this was an opportunity to develop skillsin online learning

Online and interactive learning is the way things are heading ineducation generally, so I appreciated the chance to learn moreabout this mode.

Skill development

We were also interested in how the design of the e-role playallowed students to meet the stated learning objectives of thisactivity. Themajority of students (70%) agreed that it did. Theywerealso asked if they considered the e-role play enabled them to learnprimary health care principles, practise problem solving and applytheoretical principles with students broadly agreeing with each ofthese statements (see Table 1). When asked about the strengths ofthe e-role play 15 students made comment about how theyconsidered thee-roleplayassisted them indeveloping skills for theirfuture role as Registered nurses, these two comments being typical:

It gave me an idea of what it would be like to participate ina situation where groups of different specialities worked togetherand had to develop a plan to overcome a pandemicThe potential was there to see the different strengths of, andpriorities ascribed by different nursing/midwifery roles.

However, there were also students who disagreed e.g.:

The e-role play was completely irrelevant to my career. It wouldhave been preferable to write an essay on flu pandemic andinfection control instead of wasting my time.The e-role play did not develop body language and other non-verbal skills which are also important.

Overall comment

Students made both positive and negative comment about theiroverall impressions of the value of the e-role play designwith somestudents saying they wanted more and others not.

Not having it next year- way too many hours involved, noredeeming features.I loved the e-role play. It certainly provided plenty of opportunity towork collaboratively within our group and encouraged strongcommunication skills. This was the best thing about the course.More e-role plays please!!!!!

Responses to faculty survey

The 13 faculty members were asked to respond to a short threequestion electronic survey. They were asked, what they liked, didnot like and their suggestions for improvement. There was a 66%response rate (n ¼ 13) to the faculty survey. Here we provideresponses which relate to the design and implementation of the e-role play in a large class:

What did you like?

Faculty appreciated the design and the fact that this was aninnovative learning activity. Examples of the type of responsesreceived to this question are given below:

I thought it was innovative, well constructed and the roles werewell thought out. It gave the opportunity for students to learnwhilst having some fun.It provided students with the opportunity to enact a nursingrole and problem solve in that role. It also provided them withan opportunity to work through a contemporary public healthissue.

What didn’t you like?

Faculty did not like the amount of time spent on the activity.Some also said they disliked dealing with student angst associatedwith social loafing. Some students where geographically distantfrom each other and this proved difficult in some instances.

Some of the groups couldn’t manage to easily get hold of each otherand this caused some angst amongst these groups.

Regarding perception of time spent, LMS activity statisticsdemonstrated that the average amount of time faculty spent loggedon to the e-role play was 57 min over the 10 days (range was16 mine141 min). Still some perceived this activity to be timeconsuming.

It was a lot more work that I expectedIt was excessively time consuming

Suggestions for improvement

Faculty made suggestions for improvement which centredaround making closer links to assessment in order to better fosterstudent engagement. They also suggested giving students moretime to prepare and more time to actually do the e-role play.

.having a clear timeframe for when different parts of the e-roleplay needed to be completed by, so the students were moreguided with timelines. I found if I didn’t guide them and pushthem along then they would not have completed the activity intime.Longer lead in time with more direction about what studentswere supposed to do. An agenda for the ‘meeting’ [e-role play]would be good. Set up a more formal "behind the scenes"discussion.

Discussion

This e-role play experience for large classes of students hasproved challenging for the project team as well as for faculty andstudents. As a consequence, the lessons learnt from this experiencewill inform changes to future offerings of the e-role play.

We anticipated that 10 days would allow students time to thinkand reflect, as well as promote deep engagement, developcommunication and team work skills. Judging from the generallypositive response from both students and faculty about learningobjectives being met this period of time was probably sufficient.However, we received many comments that the students were justgetting into the e-role play and understanding what they had to dowhen it ended. Thus, 10 days may have been a little short forstudents, especially first year undergraduate students, to

J. Warland et al. / Nurse Education in Practice 12 (2012) 65e7170

understand the concept of this learning activity and engage with it.Therefore, we recommend that those planning to use e-role playplan a minimum of 10 days for the e-role play to run.

Some faculty made comment about the amount of time spent onthe e-role play. The amount of time faculty spend on electroniclearning activities is also mentioned in literature (Ingraham et al.,2002; Gibbs and Gosper, 2006). In this case the perception oftime spent seemed to exceed actual time spent. There may havebeen other time spent which cannot be so easily measured e.g.reading and preparation. Nevertheless, the amount of time activelylogged on to the e-role play and interacting with students cannot beconsidered excessive, especially as the e-role play replaced 4 � 2 h(i.e. 180 min) tutorials. There was therefore either an issue withperception of time, or perhaps “lack of time” was used, by some, asan excuse for limited engagement. This is an interesting observa-tion and worthy of further investigation especially as fully onlinelearning and blended learning (mixture of face-to-face and online)are being used more and more in higher education.

Three to four weeks were spent in designing the scenario,resources and three stages of the e-role play. This was a productiveuse of time because, now that this teaching resource exists, it canbe used repetitively (Pacala et al., 2006) and adapted to suitdifferent educational uses (Wills and McDougall, 2008). Thisdesign worked very well for the large class setting. Those who donot have the time to design an e-role play from scratch or areplanning other e-role play for smaller classes may benefit fromaccessing the ‘project EnROLE’ website. Project EnROLE wasa project supported by the Australian Learning and TeachingCouncil (ALTC) from 2006 to 2009. The project’s aim was to assistdissemination of the teaching technique of online e-role play inuniversity education. The project has generated an online role playrepository. A template for the “much ado about the flu” e-role playis included in this repository along with approximately 60 othertemplates for e-role plays. These include such topics as sexualharassment, leadership, disaster management, culture, and socialinclusion. The repository can be accessed at www.uow.edu.au/cedir/enrole/rp_repository.html.

The importance of debriefing following simulation cannot beunderstated (Fanning and Gabba, 2007; Maier, 2007). However,some faculty and students took a minimalist approach to debrief-ing. This may have been because some faculty had a larger numberof students. As debriefing is an important step in simulation thosestudents who did not engage with this may not have had the samequality of experience to those who did. Explicitly building thedebriefing into the e-role play by, perhaps, linking it with assess-ment may have assisted.

Many students made comment about the anonymity andappreciated that it gave them the opportunity to express views thatthey may have held back if their actual identity was known.Teaching staff also recognised that the e-role play fostered freedomof expression and an environment where an individual’s ideascould be judged on merit. These benefits are also recognised in theliterature (Weicher, 2007). Whilst there are some negative aspectsof being anonymous, for example anonymity can lower thethreshold at which individuals are likely to engage in antisocialbehaviour (Suler, 2004), we did not experience this as a problem,perhaps due to the fact that this e-role play was designed to includefaculty facilitation.

A large number of comments focussed on the strengths of the e-role play to foster student engagement in collaboration andcommunication. This is also widely recognised in e-role play liter-ature (e.g., Bell, 2002; Ip and Wills 2002; Maier, 2007). However,there was certainly some student, and faculty angst around howindividual groups worked. There was general agreement from bothstudents and faculty that participation in the e-role play should be

assessed in some way. This was seen as going some way to pre-venting student anxiety and reducing the incidence of social loaf-ing. Whilst we have no evidence of this it would seem logical toassume that those students who participatedmore fully were morelikely to be rewarded with a higher grade for the reflectiveassessment item which followed the e-role play. However, directlyassessing participation may also be something those planninge-role play may wish to consider when designing an e-role play.

Conclusions

The development and implementation of the e-role play fora large cohort of students posed significant challenges for bothstudents and faculty. The challenges related to, designing a tool thatwould cater for a diverse range of students, choosing a LearningManagement System (Moodle) where postings would remainanonymous and aligning the content and focus of the e-role playwith the course learning objectives.

From the students’ perspective, the e-role play facilitated thedevelopment of collaboration and communication skills despitechallenges associated with varying levels of peer contributionwithin the group and difficulties setting up communication chan-nels. The reflective debriefing sessions were favourably received bythose students who participated. However, an ongoing challengerelates to how we actively engage all students to partake in thedebriefing.

For Faculty, a significant challenge related to the amount of timespent on the activity which is not surprising given this was the firsttime the e-role play ran. It is anticipated that as staff become morefamiliar with this kind of pedagogy the time spent on this activitywill become less of an issue. Despite these challenges the online e-role play is a useful teaching tool in nurse education and as thisstudy has shown, it emerged as an effective learning method forstudents.

We therefore, consider that online e-role play presents nurseand midwifery educators with an innovative and useful means toprovide undergraduate nursing and midwifery students with aninteresting and worthwhile learning activity.

Acknowledgements

This project was funded by an UniSA Division of Health SciencesTeaching and Learning grant. We acknowledge the assistance, ofAnn Davenport (private consultant) and Dale Wache (UniSA) fortheir expert assistance during the design phase of the project. Wealso thank Alison Hall (Coordinator of Online Communities j EdNA)for her assistance in setting up and running the e-sim. We wouldalso like to thank all students who evaluated the e-sim, as well asfaculty teaching in the course.

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