Watson's Caring in the Digital World: A Guide for Caring when Interacting, Teaching, and Learning in Cyberspace

This innovative text, built on the foundations of Watson's Caring Science, demonstrates how nursing professionals can develop virtual relationships that encompass caring and understanding in professional, teaching/learning, and everyday cyber communications. It describes how caring and love can transcend distance, space, and time in our increasingly virtual world to preserve the basic fabric of humanity as we physically interact less and electronically interact more. Straightforward and concise, the text offers specific practices for teachers, students, and professionals to support caring in a digital world, along with practical examples that enable readers to envision ways to create their own caring online presence.

The text provides examples of initiatives aimed at establishing ongoing intent to care on levels ranging from personal to global. Included are a variety of educational activities that rely on digital resources to facilitate interaction, collaboration, learning, and connection. Learning objectives and knowledge-check questions in each chapter reinforce information, and a corresponding MOOC and other free professional online trainings are available to readers to augment study.

Key Features:

• Built on Watson's Caring Science and expanded through Sitzman's research
• Contains specific information and practical examples for faculty, students, and professionals who interact online
• Provides examples of online caring initiatives from personal to global
• Validated by seven research studies and extensive online experience of the authors

Kathleen Sitzman, PhD, RN, CNE, ANEF, FAAN, is a professor of undergraduate nursing science, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina. Previously, she was director of the Bachelor of Integrated Studies Program, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, and a member of the faculty of the School of Nursing. Dr. Sitzman has been a nurse since 1983 and has produced scholarly work contributing to the body of knowledge of the nursing profession on the international, national, state, and community levels. She has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator on 10 research projects, several of which focused on nursing students' perceptions of caring online. She has received numerous awards for her scholarship, mentorship, and teaching, including the Jean Watson Award for outstanding scholarship in Caring Science from the International Association for Human Caring (2007-2008). Dr. Sitzman has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and has coauthored three textbooks: Understanding the Work of Nurse Theorists: A Creative Beginning, Second Edition (2011), A History of American Nursing: Trends and Eras (2010), and Caring Science, Mindful Practice: Implementing Watson's Human Caring Theory (2014, Springer Publishing Company).