Use of a Tracking Application to Document Student Participation in Professional Co-Curricular Learning Experiences

Nova Southeastern University, Davie, Florida, USA

Objective: To capture student participation and evaluation in a co-curricular program using an electronic platform Background: Accreditation standards for Colleges of Pharmacy require the development of a co-curriculum and assessment of its impact. Methods: A list of desired community and campus experiences was developed based upon 5 domains (Professionalism, Leadership, Innovation/Entrepreneurship, Self-Awareness and University Stewardship). Students were expected to complete a total of 6 experiences per semester with 3 required and 3 elective experiences. Documentation of experiences was captured using a locally developed online software (eventsRX) with an application for mobile devices. Experiences were approved by student services through eventsRX. A code was generated for each event and entered by a designated college representative to confirm student attendance. Students immediately reflected on the value of the activity using their mobile device. Event data was automatically uploaded into the student’s electronic portfolio (folioRX). Collected data was reviewed at the end of each semester. Results: 250 first year students entered a total of 3900 experiences (15.6/student) distributed as Professionalism-2063, leadership-336, Innovation/Entrepreneurship-115, Self-Awareness-674 and University Stewardship-712. Students found the experience to be extremely useful (168), very useful (17), useful (13) and minimally useful (4). Conclusion: Co-curricular events were well attended by P1 students who felt the events were useful for professional growth. eventsRX is very efficient in documenting student experiences. Expansion of the program to an interprofessional focus is desired. Grants: None