Skip to content

Facebook X Email

Search for:

Home
About Us
- Presenters
Face-to-face Workshops
Online Workshops
MOOC
Resources
Contact Us

Search for:

Home
About Us
- Presenters
Face-to-face Workshops
Online Workshops
MOOC
Resources
Contact Us

Home
About Us
- Presenters
Face-to-face Workshops
Online Workshops
MOOC
Resources
Contact Us

Events for March 8, 2026

Home
Events for March 8, 2026

Oops, This Page Could Not Be Found!

404

Helpful Links

Home
About Us
Face-to-face Workshops
Online Workshops
MOOC
Resources
Contact Us

Search Our Website

Can't find what you need? Take a moment and do a search below!

Search for:

Evidence-based workshops for occupational therapists and physiotherapists. The workshops are practical, and involve people with stroke.

QUICK LINKS

Planning a Workshop

Upper Limb Retraining

Lower Limb Retraining

1000 REPS a day

Presentation Team

OTHER LINKS

Stroke Foundation - Australia

SUBSCRIBE TO STROKEED BLOG

Sign up here to receive notifications of newly published posts to our BLOG

Name

Email*

Please leave this field empty.

Participnt Information

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION LETTER and Consent Form (PICF)

PROJECT TITLE: Evaluation of a Massive Open Online Course, 'Analysis and retraining of upper limb function after Stroke'
APPLICATION NUMBER: 2025-4241
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Associate Professor Simone Dorsch

Dear Participant,

You are invited to participate in the research project described below.

1. What is the project about?

The research project aims to evaluate the engagement, reach, effectiveness, reaction to, and behaviour change of, participants who register for the StrokeEd Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Analysis and retraining of upper limb function after stroke. You are invited to participate because you have registered for the MOOC.

The researchers aim to answer the following questions

REACH: Who were the participants, and did they engage with the MOOC content/teaching materials?
EFFECTIVENESS: Was there an immediate or short-term change in knowledge and/or confidence?
REACTION: How did participants react to the MOOC? What feedback did they provide?
BEHAVIOUR: Did participants change their clinical practice or teach others differently in response to the MOOC, during the 5 week period of the MOOC?

2. Who is undertaking the project?

This project is being conducted by Simone Dorsch, Annie McCluskey, Karl Schurr and Emma Fanayan, experienced health educators, clinicians and researchers.

Simone Dorsch will lead the project, and is an experienced physiotherapy educator and researcher who has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and has experience researching the effectiveness of different rehabilitation interventions for stroke survivors.

This research is being funded by StrokeEd, a private Australian education provider that develops and delivers the MOOC. The directors of StrokeEd are Simone Dorsch, Annie McCluskey and Karl Schurr. StrokeEd will obtain financial benefit from running the MOOC. There is no further financial benefit to StrokeEd from conducting this research project.

3. Who can take part in this study?

If you have registered for the MOOC, ‘Analysis and retraining of upper limb function after stroke’, you are eligible to participate in this study.

4. What will I need to do to participate in this study??

To participate in the study, you do not need to do anything additional to the usual learning activities which form part of the MOOC. We will collect, de-identify and analyse the following information, which will be provided by participants at the time of registration or during the MOOC :

Demographic data such as profession, country, years since graduation, clinical setting
Learning activities completed by each participant during the MOOC, such as how many weeks of content you complete
Results (scores) from the baseline and final quizzes
Feedback provided in the evaluation form, quantitative and qualitative
Posts recorded in the Facebook group

The information and learning activities listed above form part of a usual MOOC, hence you do not need to do anything extra to participate in this study. Note that the Face Group discussions are confidential and should not be discussed outside of the group and data collected from the Facebook group will be de-identified.

5. Do I have to take part in this research?

There is no obligation to participate in this research - if you do not wish to, you do not have to. This will not affect your ability to take part in the MOOC. If you choose not to participate, we can remove your data from the data we download from the MOOC and we will not include any of your Facebook posts in the analysis of the Facebook engagement.

Your participation is completely voluntary. You may withdraw from the study or the MOOC without consequence and explanation at any stage. Your decision to participate or not, or to take part and withdraw, will in no way affect your relationship with ACU or StrokeEd or any parties involved in the MOOC or in this research. Before deciding to take part in this research study, please read the information carefully and feel free to ask questions, or to talk things over with a relative or friend.

6. Are there any risks associated with participating in this project?.

Whilst there are no foreseeable risks with this project, you may find the workload of the MOOC large and potentially difficult to fit in with your other commitments. If so, you can withdraw from the MOOC at any time without any consequences.

7. Are there any costs or reimbursements involved?

There are no costs to participating in this study beyond your time. If you are a resident of a high-income country, you will have pay $100AUD to participate in the MOOC. There are no further costs associated with participating in the study.

8. What are the benefits of the research project?

Although there may be no direct benefits to you from your involvement in this research, the benefits from this research include helping to improve future education programs, including MOOCs, run by StrokeEd in the future. If the study is published, results may help to inform the development of MOOCs run by other education providers.

9. Can I withdraw from the study?

Participation in this study is completely voluntary. You are not under any obligation to participate. If you agree to participate, you can withdraw from the study at any time without adverse consequences and your data will not be used for this study. If you withdraw from the study, this will not affect your ability to complete the MOOC. Once you have submitted the registration form, you can withdraw by contacting the researchers using the contact details below. If you decide to withdraw, your data will be deleted from the dataset. You can withdraw your data up to the point we start data analyses, on August 4^th 2025. Then it will have been mixed in with other people’s data and we cannot remove your specific data.

10. Will anyone else know the results of the project or have access to my information?

During the MOOC your information can be seen by the researchers and the IT company that administers the Learndash site that the MOOC is run on. Any information or personal details gathered during this study are confidential and will not be shared with third parties without your consent, unless as required by law. After the MOOC, the data from this research project will be archived in the ACU Research Bank. It will only be accessible to the research team and will be shared and stored on the ACU secure servers (e.g. SharePoint, OneDrive or file servers) for 15 years. ACU will manage your personal information and share data in accordance with its Privacy Policy and, where applicable, international regulations, such as the EU/UK’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In limited cases, your data may also be viewable to ACU systems/software staff and administrators to address IT issues.

With your consent, data may also be used for future research or shared with collaborators for the purposes of comparing the StrokeEd MOOC to other MOOCs, the data would be made available in a deidentified format, through a research data repository. The data may also be reassessed by the researchers named on this study for future studies comparing the effectiveness of the 2025 MOOC to future MOOCs.

11. Will I be able to find out the results of the project?

We will report the results of the study on the StrokeEd website (www.StrokeED.com) by December 2025. We also hope to publish the results in a peer reviewed journal. All information about you will be published in a way that will not identify you.

12. Who do I contact if I have questions about the project?

If you have any questions or concerns about the project, please contact a member/s of the research team below.

Name	Simone Dorsch
Position	Associate Professor
Telephone	+61 2 9739 2277, +61 414811168
Email	Simone.Dorsch@acu.edu.au

Name	Annie McCluskey
Position	Researcher
Telephone	+61 419 447 738
Email	dranniemccluskey@gmail.com

What if I have a complaint or any concerns about the research study?

The study has been reviewed by the Human Research Ethics Committee at Australian Catholic University (review number 2025-4241). If you have any complaints or concerns about the conduct of the project, you may email the Manager of Research Ethics and Integrity, the Office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) at Resethics.manager@acu.edu.au

Any complaint or concern will be treated in confidence and reviewed and acted upon, as appropriate.

13. I want to participate, what do I have to do?

By selecting the ‘yes, I agree to participate’ checkbox and clicking the submit button at the end of the registration form, you are providing your permission for the research team to collect and use information about you for the research study.

If you do not want to participate, do not select the ‘yes, I agree to participate’ Checkbox

Yours sincerely,

Simone Dorsch

Please retain a copy of this information letter by downloading the PDF document here

© Copyright StrokeEd 2017 | All Rights Reserved | Created by Inky Smudge

Facebook X Email