Table 6.

Factors considered in forging a global IPE collaboration

Institutional goals and priorities	Our consultation with HEIs aimed at a mutually beneficial partnership. We discussed how our cooperation was aligned with the achievement of our institution’s thrust and priorities
Complementarity of expertise	The appropriateness and combination of pool expertise or discipline in a team were of primary importance. In the initial identification of HEIs to join the program, we considered the expertise of the target HEI to complement and not duplicate the existing disciplines. For example, the inclusion of Physiotherapy students from Hong Kong Metropolitan University and Tung Wah College complements the existing disciplines
Internet connectivity and electronic platform	The Open edX learning management system adopted for IPECP has been finetuned over the years to especially meet the need of increasing numbers of students who concurrently use Open edX
Interactivity of design	The IPECP design is built primarily with various carefully designed and structured activities to facilitate learning in groups in line with the achievement of interprofessional collaborative competencies. Using Open EdX LMS, these activities were distributed into a sequence: 1. Preparation, 2. Readiness Assurance Process, 3. Application Exercise, 4. Enrichment Activity
The number of students	For a cross-institutional IPE, while we expect a huge number of complementary health and social care students, we aimed for a balanced number of complementary expertise to even out the number of expertise in a team. This is challenging given that students’ enrolment largely varies
Authenticity of learning experiences	In developing the simulation cases, content experts aimed for authenticity in depicting the real and common experiences of patients in all the simulation cases
Time differences	Small group team members simulating interprofessional healthcare teams need to identify a common time to collaborate online. We planned ahead and arranged a schedule that was most convenient for all participating HEIs
Positive relationships	Our collaboration was anchored on positive relationships. All the teaching and learning activities were duly approved by all the participating HEIs. We were also clear about the responsibilities of collaborating HEIs