internet librarian 2009 presentation

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• Web pages can go out of date or just disappear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/