Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic sped the digital transformation already in progress at Italian public administrations. The crisis response was a driving factor to quickly move from face-to-face to remote synchronous training. Our institute (IZSAM; www.izs.it), an agency of the Italian National Health System, provides scientific support to national and regional veterinary services. Since 1990, IZSAM has planned and delivered residential and e-learning courses for the continuing education of its personnel. Among our mid-term goals (2021-2023), enhancing the technical-scientific communication skills of its staff is a priority. The institute's multiannual training plan, based on an internal learning need analysis, foresaw specific training in research communication in English. Thus, 26 researchers who were employed as temporary staff and had worked at least 3 years at the institute were identified as the beneficiaries of a course on writing manuscripts for publication in research journals. The selected participants work in different laboratories (e.g. virology, food safety, serology, genome sequencing, diagnostics) and have divergent technical competencies and English language skills.

By market research, an existing residential PhD-level course on research article writing (Effective Biomedical Writing, 35 h) was identified and commissioned with modifications to fit the institutional context and type of participant. Because of the pandemic, the course was adapted to remote, synchronous learning on the CISCO WEBEX Meetings platform. This was IZSAM's first experience with such a long, complex course delivered completely online. The virtual classroom allowed for engaging lessons, following a learner-centred approach, with a high level of interaction between docent and participants thanks to the platform's Polling and Q&A tools. Each 1.5 h lesson comprised a quiz and lecture interspersed with exercises of writing and reading aloud. Working online required a complete redesign of the lecture slides, to facilitate oral comprehension and to conduct the exercises. The lessons guided participants through the steps of writing a research paper using their own data or unpublished data of the institute. The participants, working in teams of 1-4 during or after office hours, wrote the manuscripts section by section, and the docent corrected the drafts.

The presence of pedagogical support during and after lessons was crucial for group motivation, attendance and completion of the assignments, and provided the opportunity to have a constant picture of the learning path. Strengths and weaknesses of each team were promptly identified, and as needed reinforcement was provided (e.g. group meetings, availability of senior researchers’ support). Although the online format did not allow participants and docent to talk in person, this lack was compensated for by the consequential reliance on email for delivering the assignments, adding another type of professional writing to the course's skill set. Moreover, the online format allowed more manuscript revisions and deadline flexibility than the residential course. By course end, all participants had produced a complete or partial manuscript. The learning experience demonstrated the sustainability and efficacy of the online course despite the complexity of the scientific topics covered, demonstrating the scalability of the model in similar working contexts.

Keywords:

Scientific writing, distance learning, continuing professional education, COVID-19 pandemic.