Virtual Learning Parallel Paper Session (Thursday 4 June 2009 11.00-12.30)Assessment of the quality of medical wikis using Health Summit Working Group Quality CriteriaPresenters: Ewa Dobrogowska-Schlebusch, Barbara Niedźwiedzka
Authors: Ewa Dobrogowska-Schlebusch, Barbara Niedźwiedzka. Institute of Public Health, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland
There is growing concern about the quality of the information sources built using web 2.0 social tools. It could be especially dangerous in health care field where the reliability of information is absolutely crucial. So, the question is whether the web 2.0 tools, like wikis, are really well suited to build a source of the medical information, and what kind of the security measures have to be undertaken, to avoid danger of unreliability and misuse.
Aim: The aim of the study was to check the quality of medical wikis, listed on David’s Rothman list, and to assess the appropriateness of quality criteria (QC) for evaluating Internet Health Information developed by Health Summit Working Group (HSWG).
Method: Out of 67 wikis 52 were included in the study. The wikis were assessed using the HSWG quality criteria (QC).
Results: The assessed wikis are of good quality, if we look at their design. Most of them are accessible (98%), easy to navigate (85%) and all are searchable. The quality of the wikis turned out to be poor taking into account: credibility (source, currency, relevance, editorial review process), content (accuracy, completeness), and disclosure (purpose of the site and private policy). Only 47% of the wikis indicate the name of author or institution responsible, and 25% are peer reviewed. The 92% of the peer-reviewed wikis are of good quality (comply with at least 60% of HSWG criteria). Only 46% of the wikis are accurate and 50% complete. Not every Wiki provides an appropriate disclosure. Though 87% of all wikis describe the purpose of the site, only 30% describe what kind of information about users are collected. The 56% of the wikis gives a disclaimer about the limitations of the site.
Conclusions: Evaluated medical wikis appear to be of good quality when purely technical properties are taken into account, what means that the tool is technically well suited to build an information source. The indicators of the content quality are more rare. The wikis that are peer-reviewed usually do well in regard to content quality indicators. That means, that higher quality scores could be associated with the peer-reviewing process. Therefore the peer-reviewing and/or controlling the qualifications of the wiki contributors seem to be a necessary safeguard to guarantee the quality of information, even if such a solution doesn’t correspond strictly with the web 2.0 philosophy of open, self-controlled collaboration.
The HSWG quality assessment instrument proved not to be optimal for assessing the quality of the web 2.0 tools, because it doesn’t take into account its dynamic and evolving structure. A special set of criteria appropriate for Web 2 characteristic should be developed.
Second Life as a tool for professional collaborationPresenters: Marshall Dozier, Fiona Brown
Authors: Marshall Dozier, Fiona Brown, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Second Life (SL) is an online virtual world that has been increasingly used for teaching and learning. Library and information scientists have been present in SL for some time, using it as a platform to extend institutional library services, and also using their professional skills to act as guides to users of SL in discovering answers to questions about this complex virtual world.
This paper presents findings of a survey of library and information scientists on the effectiveness of Second Life as a facility for collaborative working, networking and exchange of expertise and continuing professional development (CPD).
The findings will be helpful to those looking for tools to enable professionals at a distance from one another to work together, and will present pitfalls to be avoided and ingredients for success in using SL for collaboration, professional networking and CPD.
SUBLIMA - an open-source software for creation and maintenance of topic-driven portalsA Munthe (NO)
Presenter & Author: Anette Munthe, University of Oslo Library, Library of Medicine and Health Sciences, Oslo, Norway
SMIL - Scandinavian Medical Information for Laymen, is a successful topic-driven portal, developed by medical libraries in Norway, Sweden and Finland. After years without any technical upgrading, we had to look for a new tool for our portal SMIL. In cooperation with the public library of Oslo, which were in the same position, we wrote a letter to the Norwegian Archive, Library and Museum Authority, asking them to develop an open-source software for portals. The aim of the project was to develop an open-source software that could be used for all libraries creating and maintaining topic-driven portals. A couple of weeks and meetings later, the project was a fact, and two years later we are about to re-launch our portals, using the software SUBLIMA, based on semantic web technology. The software has been developed by the company Computas, which is one of the major semantic web companies in Norway. The presentation will briefly describe the process of the project, before focusing on the software. The functionality for both end-users and administrators will be described. In addition the technicalities and what it requires to install and configure the software will be mentioned. As the software is open-source it can be user by any library or institution, in any country.
WikiVIKO : Information Literacy on a Wiki Platform - or how to secure equal Access for Students with Disabilities
Presenter: Karen Johanne Buset
Authors: Karen Johanne Buset, Sigvor Kvale, NTNU Library, Trondheim, Norway, and Rune Martin Andersen, Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
VIKO is an interactive e-learning tool for information literacy, developed at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Library. VIKO consists of seven learning modules and provides a complete course with interactive tests. VIKO was first released in 2004, and is now successfully implemented at NTNU and Trondheim University Hospital.
In 2007 a new version of VIKO was released, the aims for this new version was to - Develop subject modules in VIKO; SubjectVIKO. The result so far is 35 subject guides, including guides both for medicine and for the health care professionals.
- Implement the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) from WAI, to provide equal access and equal opportunity for students with disabilities.
It turned out to be difficult to implement WCAG with the existing VIKO software.
Web accessibility is based on the principles for Universal design, which means that products, services and environments are designed to be usable (without modification) for as many people as possible, regardless of age, ability or other factors. Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can use and contribute to the Web. Designing websites with accessibility in mind can enhance usability for all users, and also benefit people without disabilities. In the DokuVIKO project we have focused on the blind/visually impaired, who have to use assistive technologies such as screen magnifiers, screen readers or text-to-speech software to interact with the Web.
VIKO consists of HTML-pages; has a menu-system with scripting, manual linking of web-pages, extensive use of tables and frames, which is not compatible with WCAG.
We therefore had to find a new publishing platform for VIKO, which should
- follow guidelines and standards so that the assistive technologies can interact with VIKO. The most important standards are WAI recommendation, HTML as intended in the standard, and CSS (cascading style sheets) for visual layout
- support an easy system for navigation and menus
- be dynamic and make it easy to add new pages and modules
- provide equal access for students with disabilities
- make it possible to publish VIKO on portable units like e.g. iPhone
Our choice was to try out wiki-technology. There are many wiki-engines, we choose
DokuWiki, which seemed to meet the requirements. DokuWiki is free, open source software, and already in use at several faculties and departments at NTNU.
|
