Print and online versions of Evidence-Based Nursing: innovative teaching tools for nurse educators.

The availability of Evidence-Based Nursing (EBN) online to institutions that currently subscribe to the print version is good news for nurse educators. EBN online offers educators an innovative way to use the journal’s resources and the internet to teach students about evidence-based practice (EBP). Each issue of EBN online contains the full text (downloadable and printable) of all abstracts of clinical studies, commentaries, and editorials that are in the print version. Although the print version of EBN is certainly a useful tool to help nurse educators enhance student learning, the advantage of an online version of the journal is that it contains direct links to the original published research report that is summarised in the abstract, and to many of the references cited in the commentary. Thus, when students are given assignments using EBN online, they learn about a fast and efficient internet source of high quality clinical research. If nurse educators want their students to value and appreciate clinical research, they must help them to see that accessing and keeping up with the latest findings are neither difficult nor burdensome. Synopses journals such as EBN are a good evidencebased resource for busy practitioners and for busy students who are just learning about how research findings relate to clinical practice. Medical school faculties are beginning to use synopses journals in their teaching. Guyatt et al discuss the effectiveness of this approach: “In our residency programme we have observed that even trainees who are less interested in evidence-based methods develop a respect for, and ability to track down and use, secondary sources of pre-appraised evidence (evidencebased resources) that provide immediately applicable conclusions.” This same approach holds promise for nursing students. In the following sections, examples are provided to show how nurse teachers can use the print and online versions of EBN to augment and enhance the content of both classroom based and clinically based nursing courses.