NEW WEB SERVICE FOR EURACT MEMBERS
As stated in the Articles of Association of the European Academy of Teachers in General Practice/Family Medicine (EURACT), the aim of the academy is to foster and maintain a high standard in European primary health care by the promotion of study and education in general practice. This can be achieved by nine different tasks, amongst which are ‘Providing support and information for Academy members’ and ‘Establishing a communication network between members.’
From 1 June 2013, EURACT members have been provided with the opportunity to communicate with experts in different fields of education through the ‘Ask the expert!’ project. The aim of this project is to provide timely informational support for EURACT members, using the intellectual potential of EURACT council members and their great wealth of information regarding knowledge, skills, and links. The project has established a monthly roster of Council members on the website (http://www.euract.eu) as experts with the responsibility of receiving questions and requests from EURACT members and answering them through e-mail. The participating experts need to prepare a short report for each six-monthly Council meeting about their activities, i.e. the numbers of questions, contents, difficulties and so on. Each year an evaluation of the project will be carried out through the analysis of these activities as part of EURACT's drive towards becoming a more open and dynamic organization!
SUITABLE TOPICS FOR ‘ASK THE EXPERT!’
Every member can ask EURACT experts about any problem they are facing or topic of interest to them, such as:
Information about teaching, learning, education—methods, evaluation, assessment, e-learning, distance learning;
Help in educational research (references, leading experts, web sites and so on);
Assistance to establish contacts with the Council or EURACT members from different countries;
More knowledge about education in Family Medicine in different European countries;
Questions about EURACT workshops and conferences or the courses’ agendas;
Help with links to receive financial support through grants, stipends, sabbaticals, etc.;
Meeting interesting people from different countries who work as family medicine trainers and organizing an exchange of ideas and experiences;
Starting a project and obtaining help or consultation in this area.
OTHER EURACT SERVICES
To meet the challenges of the new generation of GPs as ‘millennium learners,’ EURACT also offers through its web site other facilities exclusive to its members, such as a forum and a chat room, and is also making use of Facebook and Twitter to communicate and post information.
All family doctors active in teaching general practice in the Wonca European region are invited to apply for membership of the Academy and make use of these facilities. Applications should be made primarily to the national representative of the applicant's country. More details may be obtained from http://www.euract.eu/membership.