Introduction:
In health informatics education, there is a growing imperative to complement technical training with research literacy, scientific communication, and interdisciplinary collaboration. Structured online scholarly engagement offers a scalable strategy to foster these competencies through faculty-led, co-curricular learning environments.

Objective:
This study evaluates the impact of a bi-weekly, non-credit scholarly engagement initiative on academic achievement and research dissemination among graduate students in a health and bioinformatics program.

Methods:
A retrospective cohort study was conducted among 33 students completing their capstone projects during Winter 2024. Students who attended ≥50% of the engagement sessions were categorized as the intervention group (n = 13); the remainder formed the comparison group (n = 20). Capstone project scores and scholarly dissemination activities were analyzed using Mann–Whitney U and Fisher’s exact tests.

Results:
Intervention participants achieved significantly higher median capstone scores than their peers (96.0 vs. 85.0, p = 0.014). All 13 students in the intervention group disseminated their work, with 62% engaging in two or more scholarly activities (e.g., presentations, publications). In contrast, only 3 of 20 students in the control group disseminated their work, and just one did so across multiple venues. Intervention students also demonstrated greater diversity in project types, including predictive modeling, biomedical informatics, and ontology development, compared to the control group’s concentration in systematic reviews.

Conclusion:
Faculty-led online scholarly engagement significantly enhances both academic performance and research dissemination among health informatics graduate students. This model promotes critical thinking, interdisciplinary inquiry, and professional readiness and is a scalable strategy for advancing research engagement in graduate education.

Study Impact:
This initiative bridges the gap between coursework and real-world research by fostering scholarly identity, multi-modal dissemination, and collaborative inquiry. Its success highlights the value of embedding structured, faculty-guided engagement opportunities into health informatics curricula to cultivate future-ready professionals prepared for research-intensive and innovation-driven careers.

Keywords: Health informatics, scholarly engagement, capstone projects, academic performance, research dissemination, interdisciplinary education, critical thinking, online learning, graduate education, evidence-based practice.