Learning marketspace partnerships: An education-service-association model for developing online courses to prepare nurses for clinical practice in high-demand specialties

With the advent of the Internet, marketshortages of nurses and educators, and declining budgets for new programs, schools of nursing and clinical agencies have opportunities to reconsider how they develop and offer courses to meet the health care needs of society. Partnering in the learning marketspace is one strategy to meet these needs. Effective partnerships can develop and offer courses that prepare a variety of learners for entry-level clinical practice. They also support recruitment and retention efforts, while promoting educational and career mobility using an economic model that can sustain the infrastructure required to offer the courses.