On September 18, 2018, we posted the blog message titled “Today – the official launch of Nursology.net!” The site was conceived about a year earlier by a group of Nursologists who were members of the “Theory-Guided Practice Expert Panel of the American Academy of Nursing. We were concerned about the gradual trend to delete courses and content in nursing programs that focused on the theoretical and philosophic foundations of the discipline. We had any number of explanations for this trend, but regardless of the explanation, it seemed unacceptable to us that any discipline would by-pass teaching students the fundamental theories of their discipline. In addition, we knew from our own web searching and surfing, that much of the information related to nursing theories to be found on the Web were scattered student power point presentations created mostly by nursing master’s students enrolled in the typical nursing theory courses of the late 2000s and early 2100s – often courses that admitedly lacked rigor and substance. We knew there were small groups of nursologists who were meeting regularly to promote and develop a few specific nursing theories, but conferences and gatherings that had earlier focused generally on nursing theory and philosophy, had almost come to a halt. So a group of us, with leadership and inspiration from Jacqui Fawcett, set about to take the leap and develop Nursology.net to try to reverse this trend and fill this gap! You can see all the people now involved in the leadership team supporting the site on our “People” page.

We set out to publish a blog post every Tuesday – and we have succeeded in doing so, thanks to the many nursology scholars and students who have contributed to the blog! When we were developing the site, we set our launch date to coincide with the posting of our 20th nursing theory; today we have 84 nursing theories in the gallery with a couple more coming soon! These are all theories constructed by nurses, about nursing. I often suggest t0 people who wonder what nursing is all about, that they open the theories and models gallery and simply browse the titles of the theories! This does not give a complete picture of course, but it is a very interesting snapshot!

In addition, we have heaps of related information and links to other resources on the web – exemplars of application of various nursing theories, resources to learn more about nursing theory and philosophy, information about organizations related to nursing knowledge development, theory and philosophy-related events past and present – and more! As a friend of mine commented after first seeing the website a month into its existence – “Peggy, this is not just a website – it is an experience!” And the experience continues to grow!

We have been rewarded many times over by the response that so many in our professional circles share with us in appreciation for this important resource. This graph shows the all-time number of visitors to the site, by year (dark green bars) and the views (clicks) that resulted from those visitors (light green bars) The detail is shown for the year 2023 – during which we reached almost 500,000 views, 279,553 visitors, and we published 98 blogs (almost 2 blogs per week!

The map below shows the countries where site visitors have originated since the founding of the site. We are not surprised by the disproportionate representation from the United States, but we are gratified that the site is also being visited by viewers all over the world, and are eager to see visitors from many other parts of the world grow in the months and years to come! If you are a visitor from a country that is not shown here, and would like to know the number of views that have originated from your country, let me know! I will be glad to look it up for you!

So here’s to many many more years – decades even – to come! We are taking steps to make sure that this happens, and we appreciate the many ways in which you, our visitors, support this effort! We welcome your feedback and comments any time! And we especially welcome you to contribute to the blog! Visit our suggestions – and consider actually doing it!