Graduate students' experiences in web site development: a project assignment for nursing informatics class

As healthcare delivery systems' requirements change, nurses will not only have to process and communicate more information, but the nature and types of this information as well as the communication methods will also dramatically change. Nurses must comprehend that information technology is the key to these changes. Korean nurses and nursing students need to enhance their computer technology knowledge and skills as the Korean health delivery system rapidly embraces technological innovations. Yonsei University College of Nursing in Seoul, Korea has the longest history in nursing education and the first graduate nursing programs in Korea. It offered its first nursing informatics (NI) class in 1998, making it one of the first informatics programs in Korean nursing education. The purposes of this project were to develop nursing informatics coursework that enabled students to build skills in developing Web sites, and to measure the effect of the coursework in terms of the students' satisfaction and their confidence level. The author believes that this experience could be a helpful model for an international audience, although this is not an innovative project for some more advanced countries.