Western University's College of Graduate Nursing has been delivering internet-based education programs for health care professionals since 1996. The College has gained national recognition for their innovative web based advance practice programs.The infrastructure is fully developed with a highly skilled team of educators and staff as well as a state of the art information technology department. All courses in the curriculum are on-line and were designed with consultation and support of an experienced Distance Curriculum Specialist. Technical design of the online courses include case studies, audio/visual presentations, reading materials, self-testing and communication abilities with the instructor and other students. In addition to the course, pre-and post tests will be developed to assess the effectiveness of the training.
The design of the Cultural Competency module is based on the model utilized by the CGN for their online graduate courses. Being web-based, the educational products developed for this project are self-administered and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They comprise a user-friendly, highly interactive, thoroughly individualized learning system that meets both the academic and situational needs of participants.