Community Guidelines

ignitephysio is a new way to learn and grow as a physiotherapist in Canada. Our focus is to foster a community of physiotherapists that supports a positive, open and inclusive environment.

We believe that bringing together the collective understanding and experience of physiotherapists throughout Alberta and the rest of Canada can help each of us become better clinicians and advance the profession. But for this to happen we wanted to put together some guidelines for the community.

What we have done is broken down our guidelines by the specific section of the site.

There are some general guidelines you should follow on the site regardless of whether you’re asking a question, providing an answer or giving a comment. They include:

Be Nice

This site is meant to be a safe place for physiotherapists to share and learn together. Belittling or demeaning remarks do not help with creating a supportive community. Remember to interact with people as you would like to be treated. Just because it’s online doesn’t mean we should leave our manners at the door. If you feel that a member on the site is being inappropriate, do not hesitate to send us a message and we’ll look into it.

Protect Your Patients

Do not disclose personal information of patients, co-workers, or other individuals, unless you have the express written consent of that person to do so on a public internet forum. Remember to treat confidential information just like you would in your work environment…keep it safe. You remain responsible to comply with the privacy laws and health information disclosure laws that apply to your work environment.

Flagging Members

If you feel that there is inappropriate activity taking place on the site, then please do not hesitate to send us a message. Please avoid trying to correct someone in the answer or comment section. Remember the Q&A forum should focus on being a helpful and safe place for the community to learn and grow. It’s ignitephysio’s job to keep everything humming along and we’ll make sure to look into it for you.

Respect Copyright Laws

Providing valuable information when answering questions is important. We also want to make sure that you respect copyright laws that are in place. It’s important to remember these principles when posting content on our site:

• Provide links to relevant supporting information, rather than posting the text, diagrams or photos owned by others
• When quoting a text ensure that the quote is short in length and credit is clearly provided to the author
• Do not reproduce or repost the posts or materials of others on the Website without their consent, and without ensuring the appropriate entitlement is provided

Commercial Promotion

This site is dedicated to supporting physiotherapists in their clinical practice and professional development. Posting questions or providing answers that are explicitly promoting certain products, courses or services is not allowed. We believe that healthy discourse around products, tools, courses and services you use can be beneficial, but the focus should be on learning and growth, not on their promotion. This includes not using the Q&A forums or other discussion areas of the site for promoting job opportunities.

Your Profile

We’ve provided an opportunity for you to create a profile which includes the ability to upload a picture, and share a little bit about yourself. Remember you are free to edit and update your profile by going to your profile page.

Here are a few pointers:

• When uploading a picture, make sure it’s a headshot. Having a picture with you in the background will make it difficult to identify given the size it’s displayed on the site
• When filling in your bio, remember to keep it short and simple, but don’t be afraid to add something interesting. Think of your bio in the same way you would your Twitter bio. Short and sweet.

Questions & Answers (Q&A) Forum

With ignitephysio, you have the opportunity to ask your most burning physiotherapy questions to a variety of practitioners and the greater Canadian physiotherapy community. This process is intended to be a quick, easy and efficient way to help you grow and develop as a physiotherapist no matter your level of experience, field of interest or treatment population. Pick the minds of fellow colleagues as you gain insight into cases you’re struggling with in your practice or learn new information regarding areas you’re unfamiliar with. Remember learning together is better!

Before we get started asking questions, let's review some guidelines.

Asking Questions

You must have an ignitephysio member account to pose a question. If you are not yet a member and wish to become one click here.

• When writing your question, start with providing some context. Provide the appropriate level of detail that will help other members understand the problem, the situation and the specific help you need.
• Next create a question title that is informative, yet succinct.
• Select up to 3 tags relevant to your question. Remember that the tags you select will help to provide context to readers as they view your question on the site.
• Use appropriate language. Refrain from using explicit, disrespectful or defamatory language when composing your question.
• Remember to omit specific & identifiable patient information from your questions. Whether online or in a clinical setting, you are legally and professionally obligated to protect the confidentiality of your patients. Click here (http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/hp/if-hp-ip-lp-disclosure-guidelines-law-enforcement-specific-guide.pdf) for a few tips on how to do this easily.
• Once submitted, your question title will be public content and visible to all ignitephysio members and non-members. (To clarify: question context and who’s posted the question will remain private and only available to members)
• Once you have submitted your question, sit back and wait for the answers to come!

Answering Questions

Providing answers to questions within the community is a great way to help colleagues and share knowledge within the community. Any registered member of the site can provide answers to questions posted. Often as physiotherapists it can be intimidating to share your thoughts with colleagues. We want make it easier to provide thoughtful answers.

Here are some helpful guidelines when answering a question:

• Focus on answering the question posed by the member asking the question.
• Ask for clarification if there are elements that are unclear to you.
• Use formatting when appropriate. Use bullets, paragraphs and bolding to increase readability for your colleagues.
• Add links to evidence or resources when able to provide further context and depth to your responses.
• Use appropriate language. Please refrain from using explicit, disrespectful or defamatory language. Avoid belittling and antagonistic comments. If we feel you’re being abusive, ignitephysio maintains the right to edit or delete your contributions and/or exclude you from the community.

Please proofread and edit your contributions prior to submission.

Upvoting & Downvoting Answers & Comments

Any registered member of the site can up-vote or down-vote answers or comments. Voting on answers allows the best answers (as determined by the community) to rise to the top of the provided answers. This ranking helps make it easy to get to the answers that the community values.

Here are some helpful reminders when trying to decide if you should upvote or down vote an answer:

• Vote up an answer if you feel it provides sound clinical rationale
• Vote- up an answer if you feel it provides an evidence based approach
• Vote down an answer if you feel that is incomplete and does not address the question being asked
• Vote down an answer if you feel that it is poorly explained.

Remember, your voting is anonymous. Use voting wisely, but don’t be afraid to vote.

Commenting on Answers

If you require clarification or wish to ask a question to the answer provider, you may do so by leaving a comment associated with that answer. Please be as specific as possible when asking for clarification or additional information.

Resolving a Question

Once you feel as though your question has been sufficiently answered and you feel confident applying your new knowledge into practice, mark your question as “Answered”. This will allow us to track the success of the question and answer application. It will also indicate to the community that you do not require any additional input.

Last Updated: October 16, 2015