Sustainability via PebblePad digitization of pharmacy practice resources

Introduction: Digitization of learning and teaching resources allows for paper-free, digitally-enabled approaches to learning. While PebblePad is well recognized as an electronic portfolio platform, this study aimed to evaluate PebblePad for delivery of foundational workshop materials to provide sustainable and ongoing student access. 

Methods: From 2017, all workshops in a foundational pharmacy practice course were transferred from a paper-based manual to a modular digitized format hosted in PebblePad. An electronic survey tool assessed students' experiences with the platform. The voluntary and anonymous survey sought participant opinions on use, usability, ways of using, and reflection on using PebblePad on a five-point Likert-type scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree). Participants were asked to identify techniques they used to become familiar with PebblePad and the ways in which they used the platform. 

Results: From 2017 to 2019, 81 (45.3%) of 179 second-year pharmacy students participated in the research. Students most strongly agreed with statements related to comfort with online technologies for learning (n = 46/80, 57.5%), ease of use of PebblePad (n = 41/80, 51.3%), and having sufficient support from teaching staff (n = 39/78, 50%). The primary technique for becoming familiar with PebblePad was individual guidance from the teacher. The main use was to complete required workbook templates. Free-text comments demonstrated overwhelming support for PebblePad used in this teaching context. 

Conclusions: PebblePad provided a valuable and sustainable platform for hosting digitized foundational pharmacy practice workshop resources.