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NCFR has access to a wealth of research on families culled from presentations at our annual conference and articles from its journals and other publications. We are constantly developing new methods to deliver this content to you and your fellow family professionals in ways that are useful, relevant, and timely. Gone are the days where individuals learn solely during the annual conference. Scholars and practitioners are now interested in learning at any point during the year and at any time of the day. People also are interested in using these resources for teaching purposes in the classroom.

Two new methods of content delivery we’re developing — resource collections and virtual journal issues — will allow individuals to continue their education (e.g., for professional development or skills enhancement) on demand throughout the year.
 

Resource Collections

We are in the process of curating conference sessions that were live streamed and audio recorded this past November at the 2017 NCFR Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. Examples of the topics of new conference-session resource collections include:

■ Fathering
■ Gerontology
■ Immigration
■ Inclusion and Diversity
■ LGBTQ+
■ Parenting and Childhood Outcomes
■ Policy
■ Religion
■ Teaching Family Science
■ Theory and Research
■ Advancing Family Science

We also have recordings of the four plenaries, the presidential address, and a few other sessions that will be released along with other resource collections at a later date.

Gone are the days where individuals learn solely during the annual conference. Scholars and practitioners are willing to learn all year long and at any time of the day.

All those who registered for the face-to-face or live-streamed conference already have free access to the recorded audio and video sessions at learning.ncfr.org. Didn’t attend the conference but are interested in viewing these sessions? You can purchase online access to conference video and audio recordings through our online store.

Content from an annual conference becomes accessible to all NCFR members after one year. All sessions from the 2016 conference in Minneapolis are available for free now! Sessions from the 2017 conference will become available to all NCFR members following the 2018 conference. Past NCFR Conferences Speaking of conferences, do you remember watching an excellent plenary or concurrent session from one of the past conferences, and wish you had access to it for your personal use or use in the classroom? We may have it! NCFR provides all video- and audio-recorded sessions from past NCFR conferences starting in 2008 in NCFR’s learning center at learning.ncfr. org. These are free to all NCFR members for individual use, and are available to purchase for classroom use. Interested in an older conference? We may have that session too. Email me with questions.
 

Virtual Journal Issues

In July 2017, several NCFR staff traveled to Hoboken, New Jersey, to meet with representatives from Wiley, the publisher of NCFR’s journals. It was a fantastic trip and we learned about many great resources that Wiley has for NCFR and for you as an NCFR member.

One of the newest resources that Wiley is creating are virtual journal issues. A virtual issue will curate articles in specific content areas published in all three of NCFR’s journals: Journal of Marriage and Family, Family Relations: Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Science, and Journal of Family Theory & Review. For example, we can create a virtual issue on military families that provides articles from all three journals in one convenient location. Access to virtual issues will be an NCFR member benefit.

We’re still learning specific details about these virtual issues, such as the number of articles we can include in each virtual issue. We hope to have more of an understanding of these details soon to begin curating articles. The first issues we’re developing are related to the excellent content presented during the 2017 NCFR Annual Conference.

Moving forward, we intend to connect the virtual issues and the resource collections for easy accessibility. I am very interested in hearing your ideas for resource collection and virtual issue topics. Please contact me with your ideas.