Finding and using knowledge

Journal clubs can be a good way of: 

• keeping up to date with what is happening in your field
• connecting with others who share your interests
• learning from others working in your area or related fields
• thinking about what new developments might mean for your service in practice
• inspiring new ideas
• getting into the habit of reading
• developing your critical reading and appraisal skills

Journal club formats can be flexible to suit you. The main things to think about are:

• Who is going to participate?
• Do you need to ensure there is any buy in, support or arrangements in place so that people can participate?
• How should the club run?

This will determine the topics and the type of activities you do.

Participants should have shared or complementary interests, but don’t have to be exclusively from a single discipline.

Consider whether you want to have a single-disciplinary club (e.g. only optometrists) or a team-based one (e.g. community care service), or multi-disciplinary (e.g. educators, people interested in digitally enabled care). This will affect the types of material you select.

• Factors that influence this choice might include local improvement or service development programmes, CPD requirements, etc
• Consider personal development plans in your team – what do people want to learn more about?
• You may find that some topics benefit from multiple viewpoints or different types of expertise

Consider the dynamics of who is involved. If people have very different backgrounds or different levels of seniority, take care to facilitate the group actively for inclusive participation. This might involve:

• Jargon-busting and sharing glossaries
• Helping with technical or discipline-specific context or terms
• Ensuring that everyone has a chance to speak and share reflections on their reading and practice
  • You might find some the Liberating Structures techniques useful for this - the 1-2-4-all technique can be a good place to start
  • Find out more about these at Tools for knowledge exchange | Finding and using knowledge

Decide what you plan to read and discuss at the session and identify sources of material. Deciding what to read will depend on what sort of interests your members share, and how similar their backgrounds are.

Clubs vary in their approaches to selecting material. Options are:

• Appoint someone to be responsible for finding and selecting the material (usually someone with relevant knowledge or expertise)
• Take turns bringing material to discuss, which can be a good way for members to collectively develop skills in finding and presenting material
• Brainstorm a list of materials you find interesting and vote to prioritise them to set your schedule

The Knowledge Network is a good place to look for articles and papers. It provides free access to peer-reviewed journals, books and resource collections for health and social care professionals. Searches can be sorted by date if you want to locate recent publications: The Knowledge Network

Despite the name, journal clubs don’t have to just focus on journal articles. You may wish to consider a wider range of materials which may make your session more accessible or engaging, or may be more appropriate for your workplace. For example:

• Podcasts
• Videos
• Recent relevant guidance
• News articles

Your professional associations, Royal Colleges and health and care third sector organisations are often good sources.

Normally there will be a moderator or facilitator who will be in charge of the session. This might be a permanent role, or it may rotate. Duties typically include:

• Select and circulate the material to be discussed in advance
• Provide some information about how the session will run, e.g. prompt questions, any critical appraisal requirements, information about the practical arrangements
• Introduce the material at the session (some also provide a short summary in advance)

If you are an attendee, your main preparation will be to read (or listen to or watch, if appropriate) the material, consider any prompt questions, and if the session involves critical appraisal, do any prep work in advance.

If your club is mainly focused on journal articles and you are new to reading scholarly literature, find it difficult or don't have much time to read, you may want to start out by consulting targeted sections of an article instead of reading from beginning to end. This guide explains that journal articles often follow a similar structure - each part has a purpose, and if you know the purpose, you can become more efficient at reading and understanding articles: Anatomy of a journal article | American Psychological Association (2023)

Agree how to run your journal club sessions. Topics to consider include frequency, duration, whether to meet in person, online or hybrid, how to set your discussion topics. Some clubs invite a presentation on the paper to start discussion. Others might circulate discussion questions in advance or work through a checklist.

Discuss options with your participants and agree on a process that encourages participation. You will want everyone to feel included in the sessions.

Journal clubs can work as in-person, online or hybrid formats. Consider issues like schedules, travel, digital access, room accommodations and discuss preferences with your participants. Then design for the format you have selected.

Most clubs are synchronous, meaning they meet either in-person or online at the same time for discussion. However, there have been some good models of asynchronous online journal club discussions using social media. This can open up discussion to a more widely distributed group, but it requires good moderation, an audience who are on the same platform, and some organisation to share the information about the material to be discussed in advance.

This will depend on your aims and the material you are reading! However, clubs commonly discuss:

• Aspects of the paper that were interesting
• Things that were difficult to interpret or prompted questions
• New findings and implications for practice
• The overall methodology and quality of the research
• Relevance of the material for your context, and how it relates to your existing knowledge

One of the aims for many journal clubs is to develop skills in critical reading and appraisal. There are different approaches to this and you can select the one which is most suitable for your participants and context. For example:

• A helpful breakdown of critical reading approaches in quite simple language that may be useful: Critical Thinking | Support For Learning | Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
• A simple appraisal guide is available from the PROMPT checklist | Open University
• Resources for more formal critical appraisal for this can be found here: Critical Appraisal tools | Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) | University of Oxford
• RCN Critical Appraisal subject guide: Critical Appraisal | Subject Guide | Royal College of Nursing

See also guidance and links at Critical appraisal | Finding and using knowledge

There are different options for organising and facilitating roles. A number of them have been found to be successful. Some options to consider:

• You will need someone to organise and coordinate the meetings and circulate the session materials. While it is helpful to have a regular point of contact for the club, some clubs crowd-source articles from their members and have them circulate the articles they have chosen.
• You will need a facilitator or chair for the sessions. This can be a standing role, or could be shared amongst the members. Consider whether the facilitator might need support or a guide.
• Some clubs may have each session with a different presenter, who is the person who has suggested the article.
• There may also be a scribe who takes notes during the session, and this can help with CPD evidence. These are typically anonymous so that participants feel comfortable contributing.

There are some practical issues you’ll want to consider and plan for in your journal club: