Office of Education Scholarship

Links, Tools & Resources

Just starting out on your education scholarship journey? The OES Planning Guide is a great place to start. Spend some time working through the questions on page 1, then schedule an Education Scholarship Chat to talk over your ideas with an OES faculty member. 

The OES Planning Guide: How to Design and Implement an Education Scholarship Project (Workbook - Microsoft Word Template)

This workbook provides detailed instruction on how to conduct an education scholarship project, from establishing clear goals at the outset, through to disseminating your work effectively. Download a copy to your computer here. (Microsoft Word .docx file)

Education Scholarship Training Opportunities

There’s something for everyone here, from basic training in education scholarship, to graduate courses.

DFCM Courses

The Essence of Education Scholarship: A one-year longitudinal course containing monthly zoom seminars, mentorship and community support to help you take an education project from idea to implementation. Contact Course Directors risa.bordman@utoronto.ca or gurpreet.mand@utoronto.ca for information about future courses.

Master of Science in Community Health in Health Practitioner Teacher Education: The MScCH degree in HPTE is a professional graduate degree program in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. This unique graduate studies program addresses a critical faculty development need in the health professions.  

Clinical Teacher Certificate: This four module program's goal is to provide advanced training in health  professions education for interdisciplinary faculty members who want to increase their teaching, education and academic effectiveness. This program will assist the professional development of any faculty member or the future teacher who wishes to build a career portfolio in teaching or education and is suitable for part time teachers at all career levels: new, mid-career and seasoned. 

Interprofessional Applied Practical Teaching and Learning in the Health Professions (INTAPT): This course is designed to provide participants with a broad introductory overview of clinical education, teaching and learning issues in health professional training as a field of scholarly inquiry and research.

External Courses  

Centre for Faculty Development (CFD): A partnership between the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital, with resources available for teaching & education, career development, academic leadership, and research & evaluation. See upcoming workshops and events here 

  • Education Scholars Program: a longitudinal leadership development program for health professional educators that fosters academic excellence, creativity and scholarly productivity in education. 
  • Best Practice in Education Rounds (BPER): Held monthly throughout the academic year and offered virtually via Zoom. Freely accessible for anyone to attend.  Registration is required.  

The Wilson Centre: provides fellowships, research rounds and hosts a series of intensive workshops on education research, qualitative research, presentation skills and more.  

IHPME/PhD Program: Jointly offered by the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Wilson Centre & Centre for Faculty Development Atelier: Maximizing the rigour and effectiveness of collaborative education research. Learn to effectively collaborate in a research team. Sessions will focus on common methodologies and contemporary topics in health professions education research, delivered by researchers from across professions and disciplinary backgrounds. 

Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation (CTSI): provides resources for teaching support, educational technology, and research on teaching. 

Writing Resources

  • The Temerty Faculty of Medicine offers research proposal support  including writing and editing support; ensuring applications clearly demonstrate the impact of the research; reorganizing for most effective content and structure; clarification of meaning and improvement of readability; correction of grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation; and ensuring proposals adhere to agency formatting guidelines. 
  • The University of Toronto’s Writing Centre has produced a guide on conducting literature reviews 
  • Compare popular reference management and citation software on this comparison chart by the University of Toronto Library

Funding Opportunities

DFCM Funding Opportunities

Temerty Faculty of Medicine Funding Opportunities

The Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s Research Office offers information about funding and award opportunities. Of particular interest are the What’s New In Research Funding webpage and listserv providing updated funding information on a regular basis, and the list of available prizes and awards throughout the University. 

  • Continuing Professional Development David Fear Fellowship is a $2,000 fellowship award to support Temerty Faculty of Medicine faculty who wish to develop or enhance their competence or skills in CPD, their scholarship or their professional development.  
  • Comprehensive Research Experience for Medical Students (CREMS) offers funding to support a summer or in-term medical student and allows interested medical students to gain extracurricular research experiences in various structured programs without interrupting their medical studies. For faculty requiring matching funds, the DFCM runs an internal competition.  
  • Instructional Technology Innovation Fund (ITIF) is intended to provide opportunities for technology-mediated teaching and learning projects that explore and implement promising practices at different stages of their development and implementation, and creates a pathway for projects from their initial inception to their full potential. Awardees have up to two years to complete their project.  
  • Medical Humanities Education Matching Funding Grants support projects enhancing integration, application, and/or education within the scholarship of medical humanities and humanism in postgraduate medical education in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine. Maximum $5,000 from PGME + $5,000 matched funding.

External Funding Opportunities

Research Ethics Board (REB) Support

Data Collection & Analysis Tools

For a brief introduction to the spectrum of methodologies, please see the following article: 

Useful articles related to qualitative research include: 

  • Reeves, S., Albert, M., Kuper, A., Hodges, BD. Why Use Theories in Qualitative Research. BMJ: British Medical Journal, Vol. 337, No. 7670 (Sep. 13, 2008), pp. 631-634. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.a949  
  • Kuper A, Reeves S, Levinson W. An introduction to reading and appraising qualitative research. Bmj. 2008 Aug 7;337. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.a288   

For more information about research design, please see the following book: 

  • Creswell, J. (2013). Research Design- Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. SAGE Publications, Inc. University of Nebraska, Lincoln 

Software and programs

  • Qualtrics is a secure, user-friendly, feature-rich, web-based survey tool which allows users to build, distribute, and analyze online surveys and online tests; collaborate in real-time; and export data in multiple formats. All DFCM faculty, students, and staff have free access to a Qualtrics Insight user license – please use the online request form. Users seeking training are encouraged to attend the Live Training Webinars.  
  • The Licensed Software Office at the University of Toronto has agreements in place for U of T students, faculty and staff to purchase software such as SPSS and SAS. NVivo is available to UofT faculty, staff, and students at no cost.

Dissemination Support

  • The annual spring DFCM Conference often serves as a valuable first step in disseminating your research in poster or workshop format. 

  • DFCM City-Wide Research Rounds are an accredited, bi-monthly, two-hour interactive event focusing on primary care research and research practices. The events are open to everyone to attend, and those interested in presenting are encouraged to contact the Research Program. Guest speakers will focus on research results, methodologies, and techniques; the Research In Progress discussion will highlight new and exciting research. You will have the opportunity to network, socialize, and earn Mainpro credits.  

  • JANE (Journal/Author Name Estimator) is an online resource that helps you find the most appropriate journal for your work. Just enter your title and/or abstract, and Jane will compare your document to millions of documents in Medline to find the best matching journals, authors or articles. 

  • See journals and online repositories you might consider for disseminating your work.