International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics Community

The International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics Community (i-FAB) is a non profit making, collaborative global organisation launched in July 2007. It now has close to 700 members from 45 different countries.

i-FAB aims to support academic, health care and industry sectors to collaborative effectively to accelerate advances in our understanding of the foot and ankle. Central to these objectives is the notion of creating a global community in the field and the adoption emerging web technologies to forge an online community.

Objectives

Providing information on the global activities related to foot and ankle biomechanics
Connecting people working in the foot and ankle biomechanics domain regardless of location and discipline
Facilitating debate on key issues for the community
Creating coordinated community wide activities
Developing a profile for an international critical mass of research activity related to foot and ankle biomechanics

i-FAB activities

There are two main activities.

1) The "i-FAB collaborative workspace" uses the widely accepted Moodle platform and offers an online means of communication for the community. This is the principal method by which i-FAB hopes to create a global foot and ankle biomechanics community. The Moodle system supports discussion tools, online surveys and project databases, and provides a vehicle for presenting, storing and contributing to information. It can also support consortia based research projects to maximize research quality and pace of research progress.

Within the Moodle system i-FAB is supporting specific community wide actions. These include

i-FAB Project Repository
i-FAB Consensus groups
i-FAB Special Interest Group
i-FAB WikiFlash

2) i-FAB hosts a major congress every two years. The 1st Congress, held at the Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli in Bologna Italy in September 2008, attracted 170 delegates. The second congress was at University of Washington in Seattle USA, and attracted over 250 delegates. The community will come together again for “i-FAB Sydney 2012”.

Membership

I-FAB Members come from every community related to foot and ankle biomechanics, academics, physicians, podiatrists, surgeons, and health professionals, and members of the footwear, insole, surgery and related industries. i-FAB has an open philosophy and connecting people across traditional disciplinary boundaries is one of its key objectives. Membership is free. To join go see the i-FAB moodle page from the i-FAB web site.

Management

A Steering Group has been formed to guide the development of the i-FAB community and its activities. The Steering Group seeks to construct a framework for developing i-FAB to meet the needs of the foot and ankle biomechanics community and welcomes input and direction from members.

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