ARCHIDO / ELISAD Project: European Internet Gateway on Alcohol & other Drugs Project group meeting in Bremen / ARCHIDO, October 7-9, 2002

Minutes of the Bremen gateway meeting  7-9 October 2002 - University of Bremen

Were present:

- Susanna Prepeliczay, Archido, co-ordinator of the project
- Diane, Susanna Prepeliczay's assistant
- Toine Ketelaars, Trimbos, Netherlands
- Gunnel Larsson, CAN, Sweden
- Marianne van der Heijden, Andromeda, Netherlands
- Jose del Val, PND, Spain
- Adelaide Duarte, EMCDDA, Portugal
- Marie-Lise Priouret, Toxibase, France
- Anne Singer, Elisad, France
- Jackie Buckle, DrugScope, UK

and part of the time :

- Stephan Quensel, Archido, Scientific committee
- Bernd Titz, University of Bremen, informatician

Project administration

Susanna Prepeliczay distributed the Project interim report and gave us information on the financial situation:

- The accountancy has been taken over by the administration department of the university in August.

- This service was not able to finish and add the state of accountancy to the Interim report, submitted to the EC (30 of September), because some accountancy information was missing.

- Distribution of models for interim statements of 50% of the expenses. These are to be filled in by each partner, on a heading paper, and sent back to Susanna.

Report on data collection

159 website descriptions are available online on Monday,October 7:

- 14 by Archido
- 5 by CAN
- 10 by SZU (3) / BISDRO (7) with help of CEECs countries who were trained to do it
- 56 by DrugScope
- 24 by Gruppo Abele
- 8 by PND
- 21 by Toxibase
- 15 by Trimbos
- 5 by Ektpen
- 1 by IPDT

No partner seems to have reached more than 30 % of its data collection objective.

1. Time amount

All participants agreed on an average working time of 4 hours per site description (more or less depending on the complexity of websites and previous site knowledge we had).

Minimum working time was said to be 2 hours, when one had really got used to the form.

In any case, for all participants, the working time was greater than planned in the contracts.

2. Translations issues

Jose del Val shared his views on translation limits. Many concepts are difficult to translate from Spanish to English and terms in the WinputForm are not always appropriate.

Marie-Lise Priouret asked if it would be possible to anticipate a move towards original language descriptions, (at least in the abstracts), in the web portal.

This proposal was thougt to be possible for a later stage or 2^nd phase of the project.

3. Selection : priority given

Archido and Toxibase tried to select sites that covered a wide range of different subjects: alcohol, drugs, doping, sites for professionals, sites for the general public, etc.

Patrizia Brigoni (Gruppo Abele) - who couldn't be present at the meeting for health reasons - sent an email to share her difficulties in selecting some websites. Some official governmental and public institution sites don't present any really consistent information, but can we cancel them from our Gateway? It was agreed that the gateway project would keep its selection criteria of "substantiality". It was decided that these websites could be listed, but with very light indexing, (so that they would appear only by searching with the Organisations' name).

Marie-Lise suggested that a simpler WinputForm could be designed for websites that are less consistent than others. This proposition was not agreed.

Susanna Prepeliczay (Archido) suggested that the WinputForm could have a new facility which provides the ability to jump directly to thematic sections that are useful to describe particular sites.

4. Networking assessment

- Toxibase reported results for web searching and networking in Switzerland and Belgium.

12 Belgian sites have been selected.

In Switzerland, 65 addresses have been picked out and compared with the listing made by Archido. Marie-Lise said it was currently only possible to include 20 Swiss sites in the Toxibase working process. A cooperation between Toxibase, Gruppo Abele and Archido will be necessary to avoid any duplication of work on multilingual sites (FR, IT, DE).

- Concerning Spain : 80 web addresses have been checked by the PND ; and 8 database records are registered. We are happy to welcome Jose del Val, a new partner, to this meeting.

- The problem encountered with Portugal was raised. Susanna could not get any concrete response from the IPDT (which had been contacted by Toxibase). Adelaide Duarte agreed to take charge of Portuguese networking with Paula Braga and data collection management.

- Reported by Susanna : the Eastern Europe candidate countries have had a gateway training in September 2002 in the frame of Elisad cooperation with the Emcdda; hundred of websites have been listed for Eastern Europe, and there are already 10 records (3 from SZU, 7 from supervised contributors from other countries) in the database.

- Susanna stressed that partners must continue with networking and that it should show results soon, especially concerning Scandinavia, where data input is at low level, German-languaged countries and Greece.

Scandinavia: Gunnel from CAN was asked to perform cooperation with Jorun from SIRUS (Norway) and Outi from Stakes (Finland), and find a partner from Denmark in order to catch up and accomplish website records as planned. In the case of Scandinavia, visible results are expected to be available soon.

German-languaged area: During the past months, Susanna had been alone to collect data next to project coordination and database administration. A new person at Archido library, Diane Rahn, is being introduced to the project work from now on. It is planned to enhance networking with institutions from Austria and Switzerland.

Greece: the existing collaboration with Ektpen is to be continued in the end of 2002 after return of Penelopi Vasiou.

Workshop on website research, selection and description methods & tools

After reminding us of our scope policy, selection methodologies and quality criteria, Marianne van der Heijden led a training session analysing the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse website.

After a comparison of the results, there followed some discussion on items that should or shouldn't be present in the evaluators' form.

This workshop had 3 main objectives :

1. to share our various practices concerning tracking, selecting and evaluating websites, thereby enhancing common strategies

2. to adapt and improve our working tools, especially through the modification of the Winputform

3. to develop methodological guidelines, in order to facilitate the future involvement of new partners.

This practical exercise seemed very beneficial and gave rise to many adaptations of the input form and input guidelines.

For details, see :

- Appendix / M. van der Heijden lecture on : Selection, description & research methods

- Winput form changes

WinputForm changes and input guidelines

You can now find the tools:

- for input at: www.elisad.uni-bremen.de/seguro/addform.php

- for up-dating or corrections at: www.elisad.uni-bremen.de/seguro/selection.php

These connections are now protected. You must log in as follows:

- user: ********

- password: ******* (this is case compulsive: "*" must be in capital)

1. A new facility!

The new WinputForm - that will be sent to you ASAP - will offer the ability to jump directly to the form sections you want to reach quickly.

2. Writing and typing rules

For details, see the appendix Style guidance and Typography references (A.Singer, Gateway Bremen meeting - October 2002).

NB : All quotations marks and similar, ("...", "...", «..», {{...}}, <<...>>) should be removed and replaced by <i>.... </i>. From now on, no quotation marks should be used and everything that should appear in italics (proper nouns, titles) should be presented between these marks: <i>.... </i>.

3. Proof-reading process

1. Many thanks to Stephan Schulte-Nähring who has already proof-read the producer's and website descriptions in about 28 files. He has now agreed to continue English proof-reading on new data, especially the "producer description" and "website description" fields which will appear in the gateway output screens.

2. Anne Singer will do the typographical proof-reading, especially on free-text fields.

Feedback will not be displayed "case by case" to partners, but globally. The proof-reading will be recorded in the new field "correction date" [cf also Selection.php modification]

3. The contents proof-reading and evaluation are to be managed by the Editorial committee [cf Editorial issues].

4. Up-dating

All participants are asked to correct their existing records according to the changes agreed during this meeting.

Warning! (to be put at the beginning of the form)

"In no case re-use your WinputForm for up-dating a file that is already online"

As some data might have been modified at the proof-reading stage (correct English writing, typographical errors), partners shall only update files in the online php form.

5. List of changes

Changes in the "Selection.php" page

The selection.php file gives access to all data available online. This access is now secured by users' identification and passwords [cf. Winputform changes].

Several partners asked also for a better way of sorting and displaying results in that page. The following presentation has been implemented:

This page can be used more practically by partners, not only for up-dating data, but also:

- to check if corrections have been done

- to control if the URL is still working (automatic process).

Gateway Homepage

The home page design was discussed globally and it was suggested that there should be some further experimentation with the colours used.

Blank fields in the drop down lists on the home page could be implemented to avoid some ambiguity.

A Documents section was foreseen. [cf Appendix, Documents screen - draft by M. Van Heyden]

This provides access to the following services, from any part of the site :

* About us (History and current issues of the project ; link to the Interim report)

à to be done by Susanna

* Contact us (It was agreed to put here the names and contact details for all partners. For technical problems Bernd's contact details will be added)

à to be done by Susanna

* Help (To be written after the gateway is completed)

* Disclaimer (Stating that the Gateway is not responsible for the content and to be adapted from text on the Biome website à to be done by Susanna)

* Site map

à to be done by Marianne

* Guest book

à to be done by Marianne

* Scope policy and Selection criteria (in brief and based on documents already available.)

à to be done by Marianne

 

Searching options

All the following options will be directly available on the Gateway Homepage.

[cf Appendix, Research screen - draft by M. Van Heyden]

Free-text search

[Window] allowing for a free text search in all fields, except administrative ones - (Evaluator name and e-mail, Correction date, Comment on the form, &).

Keyword search

[Button] linking to :

1. a presentation of keywords in alphabetical order (see example on the OMNI website, www.omni.ac.uk)

2. a search by keywords across different fields will be examined.

The keyword list could be used as links to relevant sites.

There was some discussion on the use of sub-headings for groups of related keywords, i.e. having two levels of keywords; broader and narrower.

This idea relates to the usefullness of the keywords as browsing categories. It was decided that this issue would be worked on during the trial phase and the gateway test by its users.

Browsing

The browsing area also provides free-text and keyword searching options, as complements : to narrow the results.

Browsing will be possible :

- by Country (list)

- by Language (list)

- by Themes : meaning the 9 subject headings :

* Research

* Substances

* Addictive behaviours

* Consequences and effects

* History and culture

* Policy

* Prevention and education

* Treatment and services

* Economics and trafficking

In the future the usefullness of the populations / settings / resources items as browsing categories will be examined.

Another step to be realised until December was the creation of browsing sub-headings. For the moment, usability of the keywords as browsing sub-categories will be tested. (see above)

"Quick search" options

- by Organisation's name

- by 3 main kind of resources :

* News

* Chat - Forum - Mailing list

* Databases

As a next stage to the project it may be possible to enable people to be able to personalise their searches.

Output options

Two different options were examined : one presenting results in brief, the other in detail.

Links from one option to the other (to see one reference either in brief or in detail) will always be available.

The sorting order will follow ratings given by evaluators to websites. The database engine will do the sum of the ratings, and order the results list accordingly, with sites with the highest ratings being listed first.

Brief list (default option)

- Title (= Link to the website described)

- Producer

- Major Keywords

- URL

=> Link towards detailed results

Detailed list

- Title (= Link to the website described)

- Producer

- Producer abstract

- Website abstract

- Major Keywords

- Country

- Language

- URL

=> Link towards brief results

Editorial issues

First of all, it is defined that : the Editorial committee is composed by the Gateway group itself, meaning all primary partners.

Anne Singer presented a paper on typographical issues - [cf Appendix, Typography references (A. Singer)

1. Selection criteria & scope policy

Susanna shall update the selection criteria document. However, it is underlined that providing substantial information remain the main condition for a site to enter our internet Gateway.

2. Contents proof-reading & evaluation

1. "Case by case" evaluation (from a partner to another): each of us shall take the opportunity to ask other G. partners for proof-reading our own data. Stephan Schulte-Nehring has agreed to continue proof reading evaluations to ensure good English and Anne Singer will continue typographical proof reading. Both will add their initials and the date to the new correction field.

2. Subject oriented approach : after the final draft is launched, it will be necessary to search across files, allowing for contents comparison and results evaluation.

3. A first scientific assessment of the Gateway contents quality and balance will be obtained from Stephan Quensel, before the next Gateway group meeting (April 2003).

3. Networking procedure

The present participants agree the following :

1. We do not allow external organisations to implement data in the Gateway on their own.

2. Partners can produce data on their own, or in collaboration with external organisation, meaning that :

a. these organisations shall be well informed on the Gateway project, and trained to draw description drafts and updates

b. external organisations can obtain the word tool (winputform) from partners, fill it in themselves, and send it back to their supervisor

c. data prepared by any external organisation ought to be systematically controlled by a partner before entering into the database.

2. In countries where we don't know the language, extra-partners might be responsible for the Gateway contents (e.g. Eastern Europe, Scandinavia). But the Gateway group partners will keep a supervising role. [cf Winput form changes / Fields concerning evaluator(s) name(s) and e-mail(s)].

4. Technical tools

Anne Singer explained that a glossary, (internal to the database), a list of word synonyms / equivalences is in draft process. Underlying the search functions, this will enable all Gateway users to get the same results. E.g. for a search on plant drugs, results will include: natural drugs, smart drugs, legal highs and vitamins. Partners asked Anne to send them this glossary draft, in order to eventually add some new terms. The glossary currently contains 227 terms.

Marianne van der Heijden will make a compilation of all documents we still have, and prepare a Participant manual, including : practical guidance, indexing guidance, selection guidance.

5. Scientific monitoring

BISDRO expert monitoring

Stephan Quensel, present at the Tuesday meeting, made a first evaluation of our working process.

He noticed that our selection seems to focus on official resources. He underlined the necessity to evaluate unofficial or alternative websites too, since they are likely to provide original and hard-to-reach information.

6. EMCDDA monitoring

Adelaide Duarte, in charge of the Emcdda relation, will update the Centre on the project development. She will also take contact to IPDT (Portugal) and revise the gateway´s selection of EU related websites/organisations.

Promotion

1. Networking support

We agreed on the need for a synthesis of the project, presented in the form of a flyer, which could be used by any gateway participants for networking: contacting website producers, other gateway producers, new gateway extra-partners...

Anne Singer will propose a lay-out in English as soon as possible (November). Translations in other languages will be the responsibility of the partners.

This flyer will also be distributed to all Elisad members, requesting they make it available for visitors to their libraries, as already done in the DrugScope library.

It was agreed to distribute the flyer to conferences and other occasions.

2. Several ideas for promotion will be examined by Anne Singer before May 2003:

- a printed flyer will be produced in May 2003 and posted to around 3000 professionals in the field of drugs and addictions. Printing and postal costs are already planned in the budget.

- the production of a thin mouse pad (with the Elisad Gateway logo) could be a good idea if the promotion budget will allow this extra expense.

- the principle of a "launching day" was discussed. To organise it, Adelaide Duarte suggested that Anne Singer could ask the EMCDDA communication service (Mrs Joelle Vanderauwera) for help in the matter, and especially for getting all the EMCDDA press emails. A press release would then become necessary.

 

3. Second GU's consultation: testing the gateway prototype

Marianne van der Heijden suggested, as the Desire Handbook advises, that it may be fruitful to conduct face-to-face consultations for this second consultation, as well as the questionnaire consultation.

Anne Singer remarked that this was not always easy because of the distance of GUs from Paris. However, she will try to do some consultations with Parisian GUs, and with foreigners visiting Paris, if the opportunity arises.

Gateway partners were asked to do at least one or two face-to-face consultations in their libraries. It was proposed to involve GUs who are new to the site, the gateway partner being sat beside them and taking notes on which subject the GU searches, their level of satisfaction with the results, and their ideas as to what should be changed or added to improve the usability or other criteria of the site.

Of course, questionnaires to fill in and ways to conduct this face-to-face consultation will be provided for each partner.

Future of the project

1. Next future

For details on the whole timing organisation, see the calendar.

It is, of course, necessary to continue with the data collection and webportal development.

However, Susanna emphasized that the strategy has to be changed : considering the time taken, we will not be able to continue all data collection and updates on our own.

Partners are asked to find more support in their country : this could be other librarians or websites' producers, who are able to provide website description drafts using the winputform and to help with data up-dating. [cf Procedure for networking]

Susanna also stressed the importance of finding participants in countries where we don't know the language : especially in Portugal (Adelaïde Duarte to do) and in Finland, Denmark and Norway (Gunnel Larsson 's task).

In conclusion, networking looks like a priority. Partners shall all provide a report on their efforts in this direction before Christmas.

2. Gateway training

Organising gateway training seems to be a good idea, to "add some value to the whole thing" (dixit M. van der Heijden) : share our experiences and knowledge ; transfer competencies to new partners ; and get some more money for the project.

Marianne is going to examine the possibility of a one day paid for course, that could form part of the next Elisad meetings.

Providing a European professional training certification was also foreseen.

3. Application for fundings

Susanna underlined the necessity to make a new application for funding in 2003, in order :

- to secure the continuation of the project

-. to allow for a partnership extension : particularly in Eastern Europe countries

-. to improve the Gateway services : especially through the development of a multilingual tool.

Who would do it ?

Toine Ketelaars proposed to collect information on European funding opportunities, first.

4. A 3^rd Gateway meeting

All participants agreed on the necessity of another meeting before the official end of the project (June 2003).

We ask the Trimbos Institut to host this meeting, if possible, date : 2003, April 10-11.

Calendar

Appendix

- Style Guidance (A. Singer)

- Typography references (A. Singer)

- M.Van Heyden : lecture on Selection, description & research methods.

- Research screen - draft (M. Van Heyden)

- Document screen - draft (M. Van Heyden)