This symposium session will focus on one graduate nursing program’s quest to transform their scholarly project dissemination process to enhance and impact the graduate student experience relative to EBP attitudes and EBP project dissemination. The adoption of electronic poster presentations with peer and faculty review provided an avenue for program learning outcome evaluation in addition to professional presentation netiquette. Poster presentation provides an environment of engagement and discussion with peers that is not always conducive through a podium presentation (Ecoff & Stichler, 2015).
The use of peer review for scholarly project dissemination provides a culture of inquiry and enables peers to constructively evaluate presented EBP projects/research. Melynk (2014) acknowledges the importance of academic institutions to build a culture of EBP and inquiry into their curriculums. Adopting a poster presentation dissemination format for EBP projects and integrating peer review with specific rubrics for evaluation into the process not only enhanced the dissemination experience, but provided student empowerment and a method of professional accountability to speak to their project on an EBP level (Spiva, Jarrell, & Baio, 2014).
A poster dissemination rubric was approved and utilized by peers and faculty for each student poster. The detailed rubric evaluates program learning outcomes, which include specific EBP competencies, in addition to best practices for poster development. The enhancement of the dissemination process in addition to the integration of peer review has provided a more robust project dissemination and creates an opportunity for graduate students to discuss current and future nursing implications of their project relative to EBP. The adoption of such evaluation practices has created an impetus for student interest in EBP in addition to enhanced knowledge, skills and attitudes toward EBP and improved health outcomes (Crabtree, Brenna, Davis, & Coyle, 2016).