"Working Smarter, Not Harder"

The purpose of this poster presentation is to promote co-authorship of articles for publication with graduate nursing students.

Graduate nursing faculty are experiencing an overwhelming sense of burnout. There is too little time to meet on-going job responsibilities in teaching, research, and service, in addition to clinical hours to maintain their skills.  Due to growing numbers of nursing students, faculty are carrying increased workloads, often teaching in subject areas outside of their specialty, and needing to update courses constantly to be sure they reflect current evidence-based practices.  In addition to all of this, they must conduct their own research and/or publish in peer-reviewed journals to be considered for promotion.

At the same time, several observations have been noted about graduate nursing students in schools across the United States.  Writing skills are often poorly developed, and students are unfamiliar with APA and proper citations.  Students have difficulty choosing topics for capstones, and request (and need) more structure and guidance from faculty to complete them in a timely manner.  Faculty guidance often involves research assistance, basic grammar and writing skills, and editing.

In an attempt to meet the needs of both graduate nursing faculty and graduate students, co-authorship of an article for publication is encouraged.  Several guiding details must be established at the beginning of this process to ensure the proper workload distribution and authorship credit.  Once these are established, the arrangement can serve as a “win-win” for both parties.  Students gain writing expertise from the dedicated guidance of the faculty member, complete the scholarly project for their degree, and they are able to submit the paper for consideration for publication.  Faculty members benefit from clinical reviews involved with editing the manuscript, as they provide a summary review of current evidence-based practices in their field.  And at the conclusion of the capstone course, there is a written product that can be submitted for publication, and used towards their promotion in the future. 

Three separate capstone courses provide the structure for students to complete this process with their faculty advisor.  Details of the three courses will be shared during the conference presentation.