Getting a workshop into an association’s programme

Professional associations recruit workshop leaders, review new teaching proposals and maintain standards across repeated offerings. Their programmes can combine full workshops with short tutorials and recognise sustained teaching contributions.

New workshops and leaders

In AMWA’s 2007 science-fundamentals programme, new workshops generally began without credit and progressed to credit status, following the existing core and advanced curricula’s process. ¹ Frameworks for basic-science and body-system workshops supported consistency and quality. ¹ The programme sought both existing leaders and new volunteers with scientific expertise and a desire to teach, with headquarters connecting interested members to education and conference workshop coordinators. ¹

The curriculum covered general science, normal anatomy and physiology by body system, diseases, diagnostic methods and treatments. ¹ It followed a 2005 needs assessment in which 44% of members wanted more clinical-science education and 32% wanted more basic biological science; 25–32% of members had their highest degree in humanities fields. ² A task force developed the programme over two years after board approval, for launch at the 2007 annual conference. ²

AMWA’s 2014 requirements placed approval of new credit-workshop leaders with its Workshop Subcommittee. ³ Leaders needed association membership, demonstrated subject expertise and teaching or presenting experience. ³ They were expected to develop and lead interactive workshops, prepare handouts, create and review homework, and teach the workshop more than once. ³ Prospective leaders were encouraged to attend existing workshops and discuss co-leading or mentoring with current instructors. ³

Sustained teaching and development

Taking a workshop can lead to co-teaching and independent leadership: one epidemiologist took AMWA’s core statistics workshop, co-taught it in April 1999, and had led it 15 times by 2011. ⁴ He subsequently became lead author of its statistics self-study course and developed a sample-size and study-power workshop in 2004, reaching 19 offerings by 2011. ⁴

A medical-centre librarian was invited by an AMWA chapter to develop an internet-research workshop in the late 1990s, then updated it annually and added an online-database workshop in 2004, basic virology in 2009 and basic bacteriology in 2014. ⁵ Workshop content evolved alongside online tools and sources. ⁵

A grammar sequence expanded when advanced learners’ gaps became clear: an advanced workshop led to a basic course, later split into Basic Grammar I and Basic Grammar II & Usage, followed by Rhetorical Grammar and, in 2009, Diagramming for Clarity and Style. ⁶ The same leader developed self-study resources and taught more than 180 workshops across annual conferences, chapter conferences and organisations by 2016. ⁶ Another leader began an English Usage and Abusage workshop in 1975 and taught it to capacity audiences for more than 30 years at annual and chapter conferences. ⁷

Volunteer teaching can involve substantial personal costs: a Canadian leader teaching AMWA’s certificate programme from 1995 bore conference travel costs and unremunerated time away from work despite exchange-rate difficulties. ⁸ In EMWA, one regulatory writer first attended formal writing training in 2001 after six years of writing and presented her first workshop at her second conference in Prague in 2002. ⁹

Recognition and quality

AMWA established the Golden Apple Award in 1986 to recognise excellence in its educational programme, selecting one workshop leader annually through its Education Committee. ^{10, 11, 12, 13, 5} Criteria reported in 2007–13 included at least 12 annual or chapter conference workshops and an average participant-evaluation score of at least 4.4 out of 5. ^{10, 8, 11, 12, 13} The committee also considered diversity, new workshops developed, content difficulty and years of volunteer teaching; quality and quantity both informed selection. ^{10, 8, 11, 12, 13, 5}

Short tutorials

AMWA launched Pocket Trainings at its 2010 annual conference as practical mini tutorials on specific tasks and problems, similar to conference how-to sessions. ¹⁴ In 2011, seven were available, including tutorials on the following topics. ¹⁴

• Editing and organising references in EndNote.
• Editing text and reviewing comments in Adobe Acrobat.
• Making the most of an AMWA freelance-directory advertisement.
• Informed consent in plain language.
• Auto-updating and cross-referencing table and figure numbers in Word 2007.
• Creating hyperlinks in Word 2007.

¹⁴

Tutorials on bibliographic style through PubMed and creating podcasts were in progress. ¹⁵ Print tutorials were limited to four PDF pages; alternatives included slides, podcasts and multimedia, all communicating information and demonstrating examples within one hour. ¹⁵ Topics could be narrow or broad but needed medical-communication-specific examples. ¹⁵

Suggested topics included the following. ¹⁵

• Sentence diagramming.
• Animating PowerPoint presentations.
• Becoming more involved in AMWA.
• Choosing document-comparison software.
• Choosing an internet browser.
• Creating and editing PDF bookmarks and hyperlinks.
• Effective slide presentations.
• Hand-generated table quality-control forms.
• Generating a Word table of contents.
• Incorporating electronic comments.
• Negotiating contracts around project assumptions and expectations.
• Search-engine optimisation of web content.
• Organising chapter meetings.
• Preparing for employment interviews.
• Publishing a book.
• Responding to reviewer comments.
• LinkedIn and other social networks.
• PDF security features.
• Writing press releases.
• Easy-to-read brochures.
• Internal emails that attract attention.
• Comment etiquette for new business-team members.
• Editorial self-tests for individuals or applicants.
• Oral presentation skills.
• Copyright dos and don’ts.
• Software tips and techniques.

¹⁵

Members could propose and develop tutorials from their expertise, gaining instructional experience and recognition while sharing knowledge. ¹⁵ These were a members-only benefit, with authors receiving a byline and optional affiliation and retaining copyright while granting AMWA publication rights through a signed agreement. ¹⁵

Tutorial review and maintenance

The 2011 Pocket Training process involved the following steps. ¹⁶

1. The author submits a separate proposal form to the Pocket Training Subcommittee chair.
2. The subcommittee approves or rejects the topic and title.
3. The chair informs the author and headquarters; for an approved topic, the chair sends the publication agreement and agrees a draft deadline.
4. The author submits the draft for subcommittee review.
5. The chair provides input, approves or rejects the draft and informs headquarters.
6. For print or slides, the author sends the final Word or PowerPoint file to headquarters; for podcasts or other multimedia, an advance copy must be reviewed first and the author must agree to required content changes.
7. Headquarters checks AMA style, applies the template and sends a review PDF to the author and chair.
8. After both reviews, headquarters posts the tutorial and publicises it to members.
9. If content becomes outdated, the chair, author and headquarters agree a revision timeline; AMWA may remove the publication if requested changes are not made.

^{16, 15}