EduCanNURS Toolkit: Free cancer care education resources for nursing educators and students

27.10.2026

Preparing future nurses to meet the growing demands of cancer care requires innovative, evidence-based approaches to teaching and learning. The EduCanNURS digital learning platform (Toolkit) offers nursing educators a practical way to strengthen students’ knowledge, skills, and confidence through flexible, cancer care continuum-based learning that complements classroom teaching.

What is EduCanNURS Toolkit?

EduCanNURS Toolkit is a digital learning environment that consists of eight patient cases, based on the most common cancer types in Europe, introducing the Family Crabtree.
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Learning focuses on the entire cancer care continuum: prevention, diagnosis, treatment, supportive care and coping, rehabilitation and self-care, and palliative care in oncology.
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The Toolkit offers educators evidence-based materials (e.g. videos, posters, slides), learning assignments, and assessment tools.

What are the benefits of EduCanNURS Toolkit?

The Toolkit offers a blended learning approach that supports students’ learning in cancer care, while the educator materials help educators connect learning with clinical practice. The learning platform addresses students’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills related to cancer care and helps prepare them for the realities of caring for people affected by cancer.

The learning material based on the ThinkLink© platform, enables students to progress through self-paced, case-based learning activities structured around the cancer care continuum. The accompanying educator materials provide classroom activities that encourage students to apply their learning in meaningful ways.

Benefits for students

For students, the Toolkit provides engaging and authentic learning experiences that help build confidence and competence for future clinical practice. Students will benefit from classroom sessions where educators actively facilitate learning through discussion, simulation, case-based exercises, feedback, questioning, and collaborative problem-solving.

Benefits for educators

For educators, the platform offers an opportunity to enrich classroom learning, facilitate meaningful discussion, and bring complex cancer care scenarios into the learning environment. The educator materials help connect learning with clinical practice and provide classroom activities that support students in applying their learning. In addition, the ready-made, high-quality, evidence-based materials make planning and delivering classes easier, save valuable preparation time, support quality and consistency in teaching, and offer ideas and inspiration for engaging learning activities.

Together, the digital platform and educator materials create a learning experience that benefits both students and educators.

Examples of how to use EduCanNURS Toolkit

Participating universities in the EduCanNURS project are integrating the Toolkit into their nursing programmes in ways that best suit their curricula and educational goals.

Embedding cancer care education at the University of Galway

The University of Galway will use the EduCanNURS Toolkit within its undergraduate nursing curriculum as an elective 5 ECTS stand-alone module for third-year students. As the university transitions to its new curriculum, EduCanNURS content will be embedded within existing modules, ensuring that students continue to benefit from the programme’s evidence-based approach to cancer care education.

– EduCanNURS will be an important part of our nursing curriculum, first as a stand-alone elective module and later integrated within existing courses, explains Maura Dowling from the University of Galway.

Integrating authentic patient cases at Turku University of Applied Sciences

At Turku UAS, the platform will become part of the 5 ECTS course Nursing Care of Critically Ill and Palliative Care Patients. Students will complete the full Core Unit and work through one patient case selected by their student group according to their interests.

The goal is to strengthen students’ competence in holistic cancer nursing and palliative care while supporting the development of clinical decision-making and patient-centred care through authentic patient scenarios.

– By integrating EduCanNURS into our curriculum, we can provide students with authentic learning experiences that strengthen their competence in cancer and palliative care while supporting clinical decision-making skills, says Isa Öhberg from Turku UAS.

A resource for nursing educators everywhere

EduCanNURS Toolkit can be implemented in different ways, whether as a stand-alone module or integrated into existing courses. Its flexibility allows educators to adapt the content to local curricula while benefiting from ready-made, evidence-based learning materials and practical teaching resources. In addition to the practical support for nursing educators, the Toolkit can also be further adapted for use in other undergraduate programmes.

Explore the platform and get started

We encourage all nursing educators to explore the EduCanNURS learning platform and consider how it could support their teaching. By incorporating digital, case-based learning into nursing education, educators can help students develop the cancer care knowledge, skills, and professional judgement they will need throughout their careers.