An innovative approach for pharmacists’ continue education: Massive open online courses, a lesson learnt

Objective: To develop a massive open online course (MOOC) for pharmacists as an innovative continue education. Design: A MOOC titled “Special Topics in Clinical Pharmacy” for pharmacists as a professional continue education program was developed and evaluated. It was implemented with case-based lecture videos and interactive quizzes. Content was delivered in weekly base. A Pre-course survey, a post-course survey, and a learner-driven final assessment were conducted accordingly. Results: The primary outcomes of the MOOCs in effectively engaging learners and motivating targeted learners from massive online learner were assessed. The satisfactory of MOOCs production from learners was evaluated as well. There were 407 participants signed in for this MOOC. 95% of certificate earners were pharmacists. 88% were willing to take the next professional MOOC. MOOCs might be an innovative, effective and efficient approach to deliver professional continue education. The study also shows that more efforts on implementing online communities should be made to engage more learners.