Using e-mail to facilitate nursing scholarship

A central tenet of university education is the development of scholarly abilities. The traditional hallmarks of scholarship, such as critical thinking, reflection, creativity, critical analysis, and openness to new thinking, need to be fostered in the face of increasing technological change. Contemporary e-mail applications provide a sophisticated environment in which many of the fundamental skills of scholarship can be nurtured. This article describes an interdisciplinary curricular project in which e-mail was employed as a vehicle to support the development of students' understanding of scholarship within a cohort of first-year undergraduate nursing students. The project involved the establishment of "Virtual Colleague" activity, which used e-mail to conduct scholarly activities, including critical analysis of electronic journals and web sites and peer review. The theoretical underpinning of the project and an evaluation of the project are presented. Future use of such technologies in the promotion of scholarship among nurses is discussed.