Suzette Porter
Report on the 2009 IDEALS Membership Survey
 

INTRODUCTION

Over the past few years, the rate of new members joining IDEALS has slowed and, as members resign, their places are not being filled. It was timely to examine the membership’s views of IDEALS.

The Membership Committee had several important topics on which they wanted comments. These included (a) the value of IDEALS as an organization, its aims and direction, and the reasons why people are members, (b) the relative importance of the Website, IDEALS Bulletin, congresses and other benefits offered to members, and lastly, (c) indications of willingness to participate in IDEALS activities and introduce new members so that the organization can grow.

This review contains a summary of the key results from the survey and some personal commentary on them. It is designed both to inform members, and to encourage feedback or suggestions from members.

On first glance, the results are consistent with a group of respondents who are reasonably satisfied with the organization and its various benefits. Each offering or item attracts a reasonable following and few people criticized the basic framework of IDEALS. Such endorsement gives an idea of what to preserve but is less useful in identifying any changes that may be needed to increase membership. I have tried to look behind the statistics and tease out some of the ‘negative’ comments even though these are few in number. I hope that individuals will guide the Membership Committee and the Board and will contradict, criticize, support or expand the views expressed, and provide a narrative for the statistics.

OVERVIEW

The survey included anyone for whom an email address was in the system (members, lapsed members and past members) and 66 people responded of which 31 identified themselves as active members. This is a useful result as it indicates a core of people willing to comment on the future of IDEALS. With this type of survey, opinions will be skewed towards those who are most interested and committed, but not very much about those who are less enthusiastic. However, in a membership survey this is acceptable as the aim is to respond to the needs of the committed group and attract similar people to join.

VALUE OF IDEALS TO MEMBERS

The existence of IDEALS

It was reassuring to know that 83% of those who had an opinion believed an international organisation specific to ethics and law in dentistry is warranted and 95% want IDEALS to continue even with a small membership. A question was asked about whether IDEALS should merge with another group, and the results were less clear. Half of the respondents rejected a merger, 29% supported merging and a further 20% had ‘no opinion’. It is difficult to determine whether respondents who supported joining another group had in mind organisations that were ‘dental’ but not specifically tied to ethics and law, or ‘ethics and law’ organisations that were not specifically dental. Whilst this makes an interesting observation, given the strong desire to continue with IDEALS, it need not be clarified urgently.  

Aims and objectives of IDEALS

The survey asked members to indicate the level of importance of the various roles that IDEALS attempts to fulfill and the level of emphasis currently placed on the various content areas within IDEALS.

TABLE 1 Roles of IDEALS

	Very/most Important	Important
Advance education in dental ethics and law	67%	24%
Provide resources and on-line networking	42%	36%
Stimulate ethical codes, laws and policies	47%	29%
Organize congresses	35%	40%
Be a watchdog against unethical practices	32%	30%

 

Overall, members value all of the current aims of IDEALS. Of the aims, more people lack interest in the role of ‘watchdog’ (38%) and yet it maintains a 62% following.

TABLE 2 Content Mix

	Balanced	More emphasis	Less emphasis
Dental Ethics	31%	65%	4%
Dental Law	36%	53%	11%
Oral health policy	57%	35%	9%
General health ethics	43%	45%	13%
General health law	54%	30%	16%
Forensic Dentistry	43%	19%	38%
History of Dentistry	34%	13%	52%

Whilst there seems to be interest in each item in the content mix, there may be room to change the balance that is offered. The results seen in Table 2 indicate that people tend to value topics that focus on ethics and law in dentistry and want them increased in emphasis. Ethics and law in general health, and oral health policy seem balanced and few want them reduced. Although more respondents wanted the emphasis on forensic dentistry reduced than in the above topics, it is still seen as necessary and in balance by a significant number of members. Only one topic – History of Dentistry - was poorly received; however its level of support would indicate that deletion is not necessary.

The fundamental Roles and Content of IDEALS seem to be accepted by the membership. The risk in change is to disappoint some existing members but, as can be seen, the status quo does not satisfy everyone. In any organisation there are natural fluctuations that follow changes in members and committees. With the level of interest, it would only require a small group of supporters to promote, maintain and/or expand each of the key roles or topics, and there is a nice balance to encourage a diverse membership and accept the fluctuations in interest from time to time.

Joining IDEALS

Most respondents found out about IDEALS through attending a congress (30%), via the internet (23%) or another member (22%). There were 8 original members who responded. Most people indicated that they would renew their membership. Twenty ‘lapsed members’ are still interested enough in IDEALS to respond to this survey, and eighteen ticked ‘uncertain’ about renewing their membership. This means we have an opportunity to encourage them back. For those not renewing their membership, the reasons given are consistent with normal changes in membership but the number is small.

Respondents nominated the two most important reasons for renewing their membership. Belonging to an international network was the most important reason (82%). That membership is necessary/desirable for professional work or obligations, and that IDEALS flourishes were of equal importance (38%). Other reasons such as benefits, low annual dues, and discount for congress attracted insignificant response rates.

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS

The role of networking and the importance of IDEALS as an association are noted by members as being the main reasons for membership. In addition, the website with its access to a variety of links and databases, the Bulletin and the Congress are seen as the three areas of benefits provided to members and they expend most of the income and time of IDEALS committee members. The overall use of these benefits to members needs to be considered in the light of the reasons for joining and renew membership.

The Internet (23%) and the Congress (30%) are the main sources for new members. Current members did not nominate frequent use of these benefits as reasons for renewing their membership (9%), yet lapsed members said that the benefits would encourage them to rejoin (25%) and past members indicated that they left because there was too little offered (29%). Work related reasons were nominated frequently as important motives for renewing membership (38%), rejoining (50%), and no longer working was a reason for leaving (36%). There is a seeming dichotomy between the low use of benefits and professional or work related activity in ethics and law. Further examination is needed to find an explanation.

Website

TABLE 3 Importance of the Website

“Having a robust and informative IDEALS website is….”	Strongly disagree / disagree	Strongly agree / agree
A condition for my own membership	14%	45%
Will certainly draw new members	0	69%
Is vitally important for functioning of IDEALS	0	84%

 

The Website is considered important especially for the administrative and recruitment reasons. However, many members rely on it as critical to their membership (Table 3). In contrast to this reported importance, Table 4 shows that few people visit any of the parts of the website more than once a year, with the exception of the Bulletin (46%) and Main Page (43%), and a high number never visit the web, or make use of little of its content. One factor that emerged from this question was the relatively high number of members within the ‘never’ ranks who were unaware of many content items on the website.

TABLE 4 Usage of Website

	Several times year	Once year	Never
Main page	43	38	19
IDEALS Bulletin	46	31	23
Congress pages	34	43	23
Other online resources	28	44	28
IDEALS documents & reports	28	38	34
International online codes of ethics/law	26	43	31
Database of other associations	23	30	47
Search for members	18	36	46
Personal profile	9	57	34

 
IDEALS Bulletin

The Bulletin has been available for many years - initially in print and now electronically. The questions related to the on-line version of the Bulletin.

The IDEALS Bulletin is read by 60% of respondents but only 45% claim to do so more than once a year and 32% rarely read it. This result is not inconsistent with the readership of publications of other professional associations. The number who replied to the question on the usefulness of the components of the Bulletin would indicate a level of support for the Bulletin, even amongst those who do not read it.

TABLE 5 Content of IDEALS Bulletin

	Unimportant/ Somewhat NB	Important	Very Important
Clinical cases, commentaries	7	50	43
Digest of recent publications	5	51	39
Discussion articles, debates	2	68	30
Opinion pieces, interviews	7	71	19
Summary legal cases, new laws	16	43	41
New books and book reviews	9	59	27
Refereed academic style articles	18	55	29
Educational program information	18	52	30
Congress proceedings	19	49	30
List of recent theses & dissertations	32	42	27
Non-refereed academic style articles	30	55	5
Presidents Corner	41	43	10
Biographies of members	51	30	9

 

Over 90% of respondents rank as important or very important the following:- discussion and debates; clinical cases; opinions and interviews; recent literature, publications, book lists, book reviews.

Approximately 80% are interested in:- refereed academic articles; summary of legal cases; education information; congress proceedings

Of less interest are lists of dissertations (68%) although those who want this item find it very important to them, and non-refereed articles (60%), and least importance are President’s Corner (52%) and members’ biographies (39%)

Congress

The role of congresses as a part of IDEALS was important for 75% of members (and 35% of those considered them very important). The congresses were the source of membership of IDEALS for 30% of respondents.

Because of the small budget and the need for strong local input, the content and flavour of each Congress will differ. It was therefore reassuring to note that all aspects of the congress received support by more than 60%. This gives the advantage to local committees to use selected and varied local resources, yet still provide a mix of items that will satisfy attendees. In Table 6b, the ‘Very Important’ responses are presented. It is possible that this may represent the more specific mix of interests of the members and individuals who could be drawn upon to present of arrange presenters for the overall attendees who have a broader range of interests.  This, together with the results in Table 7, indicate a sound balance between those who want to attend a congress to present their work and those who want to attend as the ‘audience’.

TABLE 6 Components of a Congress

	Somewhat Important Not NB %	Important Very NB %
Plenary panel discussions	9	92
Plenary lectures	10	89
Breakout sessions: short presentations	15	86
Time without events to network	17	83
Breakout sessions: round table discussions	22	78
Opening reception	28	73
Congress dinner	35	64
Poster presentations	38	62
Opportunity to be part of panel/round table	41	61
Opportunity to present own work	42	59

 

TABLE 6b Components of a Congress that are very important

	Very Important %
Plenary lectures	54
Breakout sessions: short presentations	46
Time without events to network	46
Plenary panel discussions	45
Breakout sessions: round table discussions	39
Congress dinner	31
Opening reception	28
Opportunity to be part of panel/round table	26
Poster presentations	17
Opportunity to present own work	17

 

ACTIVE PARTICIPATION

The third objective of the survey was to gauge the level of interest in actively participating in the workload of IDEALS and in attracting new members. The responses to the questions posed for this purpose were encouraging.

TABLE 7 Expressions of interest in active participation

	Yes %	Maybe %
Serve on membership committee	21	29
Serve on Website committee	8	29
Contribute to Bulletin (voluntary)	8	30
Contribute to Bulletin (invitation/specific topic)	38
Attend Congress in 2010	34	30
Present or contribute to Congress 2010	28	44

 

CONCLUSION

Reflection and self-assessment are always useful activities, and no less so because it is of an organization. In this review, it would appear that IDEALS is in a strong and healthy position but we all know that without funds no organization thrives and without members IDEALS does not have a regular source of funds.

It is critical that we do not view these results with complacence but as an indicator that the ‘service and product’ that is IDEALS, has no major flaws. We now need the champions in individual activities to ensure that we are able to enjoy the benefits of IDEALS. Most important, we need to recruit new members.  Names were provided by some people during the survey, and I would encourage all members to send in other names of people that could be contacted by the Membership Committee and invited to become a member.

As stated at the beginning, discussion on this paper is welcomed and encouraged.

 

Correspondence Address:
Suzette Porter, BDSc, MBA, PhD
IDEALS Membership Committee
University of Queensland
Dentistry
PO Box 1096 - Toowong
Brisbane, Queensland 4066
Australia
suzette.porter@uq.edu.au