The purpose of the Simulation Innovation and Resource Center (SIRC) project, a collaborative alliance between the NLN and Laerdal Medical, is to develop a community of nurse educators who can effectively use simulation to promote and evaluate student learning and who dialogue with one another in an effort to advance simulation in nursing education.
History of the SIRC
Following the first successful NLN/Laerdal Medical project, Designing and Implementing Models for the Innovative Use of Simulation to Teach Nursing Care of Ill Adults and Children: A National, Multi-Site, Multi-Method Study, representatives from Laerdal Medical met with NLN staff and Dr. Pamela Jeffries in the fall of 2006 to discuss what resources were needed for nurse educators to enable them to move forward and incorporate simulation as a teaching/learning strategy. At that time there were few resources available for faculty development in simulation pedagogy and implementation. A website that would provide a variety of resources and establish a community where nurse educators could learn to effectively use simulation to promote learning and advance simulation in nursing education was proposed and the Simulation Innovation and Resource Center (SIRC) project, a collaborative alliance between the NLN and Laerdal Medical, was born.
Work on the project began in early 2007 with a call for simulation experts; 169 nurse educators applied and nine were chosen. They represented a variety of types of educational institutions in geographic locations around the country. The nine simulation experts from the United States were joined by eight international simulation educators from Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Japan, Norway and Scotland.
Working with instructional designers and technical staff from Laerdal and Fitne, eight online courses were created, along with forums, a glossary, an annotated bibliography, links to vendors and simulation center websites around the world.
The SIRC launched in June 2008 with three online courses and six more debuted in September of 2008. New online courses have been added at regular intervals since then, and every two years all courses are reviewed and revised as needed by simulation experts to comply with standards for awarding continuing education.
Other new areas providing free tools and templates along with projects and products developed by alumni of the NLN’s Leadership Development Program for Simulation Educators have also been added yearly. A unique section of the SIRC website added in 2015 is HomeGrown Solutions, a joint effort between the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning (INACSL) and the NLN. Simulation educators submit their self-made items, creative adaptations to existing items, simulation recipes, and other ideas that increase fidelity, are reviewed by an INACSL committee, and those selected are posted on the website and recognized during the INACSL conference each year.
Original SIRC Team
Simulation Authors | International Participants | Leadership |
| Andrea D. Ackerman Mindi Anderson Mary Cato Carol Fowler Durham Deborah Henderson Clare Lamontagne Suzan Kardong-Edgren Susan Prion Patricia Ravert | Barbara J. Foulds (Canada) Sissel Eikeland Husebø (Norway) Yumi Iwamoto (Japan) Michelle Kelly (Australia) Marcia A Petrini (China) Jack Simpson (Scotland) Ailing Wang (China) Eliana X. Escudero Zúñiga (Chile) | Project Director: Pamela R. Jeffries Assistant Project Director: Marcella T. Hovancsek NLN Staff Liaison to Laerdal Projects: Mary Anne Rizzolo Fitne Instructional Designer: Julie McAfooes |
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