Internet Librarian 2009 Presentation

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/

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

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

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?

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Web pages can go out of date or just disappear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

Choosing a portal provider

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.

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

The ScHARR Portal

Journal feeds and podcasts

Tailoring Your Information