Integrating national initiatives and local developments: streaming video to support nurse education in the UK

This paper identifies key elements of the broader processes that contributed to the implementation of an educational innovation involving streaming video. Streaming video was used to support the learning of first year student nurses on a Life Sciences module. The use of streaming video was one of several innovations within the module designed to expand the range of learning resources available to students following a considerable increase in recruitment to this nurse training programme. This innovation was one of several supported by the Lifesign project; itself one of many nationally-supported development-projects designed to research and develop a Distributed National Electronic Resource (DNER) aiming to provide easily accessible, comprehensive information resources for use by learners, teachers and researchers within UK higher and further education. Lifesign project staff worked closely with staff in the School of Nursing and Midwifery to produce and evaluate the use of learning resources that embedded video streams. Evaluation demonstrated that many aspects of this innovation worked well. Using this innovation as an illustrative case study, this paper explores interactive processes that integrate national initiatives, the operation of multi-professional project groups and the aspirations of lecturers and learners. It highlights the factors that contribute to successful educational innovation and those that potentially limit the overall success of the processes.