internet librarian 2009 presentation
DESCRIPTION
The presentation looks at subject-specific Web 2.0 portals for academic and National Health Service researchers and moves to discussion of the pitfalls encountered and lessons learnt in choosing a portal hosting service. Hosted on iGoogle, Pageflakes and Netvibes, the portals bring together news, journal content, funding opportunities, events and tailored searches.TRANSCRIPT
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Portals and Pitfalls: Developing web-based research portals for the NHS and University
of Sheffield
Andy Tattersall, Information Specialist University of Sheffield
Claire Beecroft, Information Specialist, University of Sheffield
Anna Cantrell, Information Specialist, University of Sheffield
Image courtesy of Sleighboy :http://www.flickr.com/photos/sleighboy/
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Rationale for Developing the Portals (1)
• Establishment of the NIHR RDS• Lack of knowledge about information
management among NHS researchers• Need to simplify gathering of information
from a wide range of multi-media sources• Changing nature of research- information
resources are becoming more diverse
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Rationale for Developing the Portals (2)
• ScHARR, University of Sheffield- key UK Public Health research school
• Research is conducted among teams with members from throughout the school
• ScHARR is keen to innovate- hence recruitment of a specialist in web technologies
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
How portals can help you
• Keep you up to date with what interests you
• Provide a point of reference
• Help you find, share and collate information
• Help you interact
• Combine text, links, images audio and video
• Be accessible anywhere
• Provide a snapshot on a topic, organisation, country, the world
• Provide entertainment
• Portals are adaptable and moderately easy to master
• Be automated (for the most part)
• Make your life simpler?
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
How portals can hinder you
• They are not as automated as we would like
• RSS feeds can break
• Web pages can go out of date or just disappear
• There is always new information, links and people to add
• Multiple moderation is needed for specialist topics
• Not all content is applicable to everyone – UK/US angles
• Information overload
• Pages can be slow loading
• Need for a decent Internet connection
• Sponsored links
• They could make your working life more complicated
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Choosing a portal provider
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Choosing a portal provider (2)
• Initial evaluation focused on: Pageflakes, Netvibes and iGoogle
• Eventually chose Netvibes for a number of reasons:• Comprehensive and adaptable
• Content can be spread over a number of tabs
• Many widgets available: rss/Atom feeds, calendars, search engine boxes, notes, bookmarks, Flickr photos, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, email and user-created modules
• Netvibes provides reliable support to users.
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Widgets
“A web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation”
Wikipedia (2009) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_widget
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
The ScHARR Portal
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Journal feeds and podcasts
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Tailoring Your Information
•Health News•Special Research Topics and Interest Groups•Library Journals•Videos•Funding Feeds•Maps•Customised Search Engines
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Supporting Specialists (1)
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
Supporting Specialists (2)
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
What next ? (1)
• Evaluation of the portals
• Horizon scanning for new portal providers
• Horizon scanning for new web 2.0 (and web 3.0) tools
School ofHealthandRelatedResearch.
What next ? (2)
• Working with NHS to overcome access issues
• Increasing the number of portals
• Sharing with other RDS
• Investigating commercial potential Image courtesy of Morgaine:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/morgaine/