ELISAD European Gateway on Alcohol and other Drugs / Final Research and Activity Report December 2003
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1.2. Situation of internet-based information on alcohol and other drugs
The general problem of diversity regarding drug related resources is wellknown from professional experience. Another general problem regarding web-based information resources, not only in the health and medical field, features large differences in quality and actuality.
Ethical problems with regard to ideology and credibility are applying even more to websites in the field of psychoactive substances (4): according to Monahan and Colthurst (2001), the web-based information about ATOD can be characterised as a treasure-trove of free, state-of-the-art data or as a "sea of confusion" with much information being of questionable quality, misleading, or even dangerous. Another problem is the distribution of resources, and the lack of organised retrieval from the enormous mass of information on the web. This problem can be cleary observed in practice and search related to the professional use of AOD web resources (see1.2.2.)
1.2.1. Features of web based AOD information
The revision and analysis of AOD websites can identify several problems related to the subject itself, the diversity of publishers and their intentions, and the variety of content and function.
Problems related to the subject alcohol and drugs: Drug related topics are a politically controversial subject. Especially the use of illicit substances is per definitionem a criminal act in most European countries. The societal perception of drugs and their use can change according to shifts in current paradigms and approaches in policy and research. Interpretation and attitudes towards psychoactive substances, and related behaviour and consequences vary between societies due to cultural differences.
To exemplify the variety of publishers, some typical backgrounds of AOD website producers are summarised below.
Governmental websites: Serving as the web-based presentation of mission, structure and activities, governmental sites include official information published by public authorities on federal or national levels, and their representatives, administrational departments, law enforcement agencies, etc.
NGO and Institutional websites: Non-governmental associations and institutions presenting their background, activities, and materials on the www include academic bodies and scientific publishers, research institutes, international associations and networks that often subscribe to ethical criteria and sometimes feature high levels of referentiality within the scientific community. This applies in many cases to the variety of non-profit organisations, free carriers, alternative drug services, and political initiatives.
Private / individual websites: Web presences of private persons and communities often include semi-official, or unofficial information according to personal views and opinions. For example, persons within the community of drug users, often young people, must stay anonymous to avoid problems, and often spread positive, enthusiastic, or temptative messages concerning drug use. On the other hand, researchers and other professionals know these sites as originary sources of first-hand information on drug users knowledge and experiences. The problem of unbalancedness can also be stated for prohibitionists web publications.
Commercial websites: Many individuals and companies utilise the web exclusively to create entrepreneurial opportunities. Such providers usually charge fees for their information, services and products. Trades, especially in the tobacco and alcohol field, but also in illegal substances and accessoirs, are frequently publishing on the www for commercial purposes and advertising. This includes book and publishers trade, as well as scientific journal contents available for purchase on the www.
The analysis of AOD related website contents identifies as a main problem the lack of accountability, regarding qualifications of staff who provide and present the information available, which can be a source of (un)intentional harm to users.
According to publishers, web based information can be biased. This fact is not problematic when objectives of the publisher are evident from his mission statement, but subject of unsecurity when published anonymously.
Problems related to the variety of AOD related contents of websites can be exemplified in the following items which relate to the diversity of activities and related intentions.
Multidisciplinarity of the AOD field: Disciplines active in the field of alcohol, drugs and addictions are various. They include sociology and social sciences, general health sciences, medicine, pharmacology, biology and biochemistry, psychology/psychiatry, political and cultural sciences, law and criminology etc.
Consequently, a large diversity of professional activities and related working areas in the AOD field is established, including prevention and education, research, treatment and therapy, policy and law enforcement, economics and trafficking, history and culture, documentation and publishing. This wide range of activities is additionally relating to a large variety of psychoactive substances and patterns of use, of social and health consequences, of populations and target groups, of environments and settings, etc.
Variety of publishers intentions: Drugs are a highly controversial subject in all related working areas. The public perception of drug use and its consequences is changing over time according to shifts of current political and scientific paradigms. Diversity in interests leads to diversity of messages: All information in the AOD field is biased, and influenced by ideology. This includes also the claim of objectivity of publishers aiming to provide scientifically based information. The end-user is confronted with this variety of intentions ranging from prohibitionism and anti-drug attitudes, differing approaches for prevention, from the spread of false information and popular myths to harm reduction, acceptance, and promotion of drug use.
Diversity in functions of website: resulting from the varieties of publishers and according to their intentions, websites can serve for a variety of functions, such as:
- presentation of institutions activities/background
- platform for publishing
- platform for contact / communication
- platform to access information systems
- provider of online prevention, online counselling, online training ect. using interactive means
- platform for online services, e.g. ordering, subscription
Resulting from these diverse approaches and intentions, a wide spectrum of quality differences can be observed. The relativity of contentual balancedness is a crucial stake especially in the AOD field, from which arises the problem of reliability , credibility and validity of web-based information on drugs and addiction.
Currently, many efforts within the information sciences are busy to cope with this in the health and medical field (see 1.3.4.). The Elisad gateway project focuses to evaluate the quality of information published in AOD websites, according to ethical considerations and selection criteria developed for this purpose (see 2.1.2.).
1.2.2. Relation to professional information requirements
Difficulties to find reliable alcohol and drug related information on the web were recongnised during the 1990s.
In the 1999 Elisad annual meeting, 2 presentations focused on this issue. These were followed by a discussion from alcohol and drugs information specialists on professional information requirements. Ideas were shared on ways and possibilities to cope with the challenge of effective retrieval of web based AOD information. This was the origin of initiation towards development of an AOD gateway.
Greet van der Spek (5), information specialist at the TRIMBOS library (NL) analysed the results of a web search performed to find information on new synthetic drugs. She was confronted with a large results, including sites promoting psychedelic experiences, sites warning against the dangers, and sites giving scientific information. Problems of professionals relate to the overflow of information. A specification of her search request did not help to reduce the results of information retrieval: the use of the search string "GHB" resulted in 4.982 matches in Google, and 15.807 matches from Northern Light (www.northernlight.com). Among these, there were commercial and private pages which contained "GHB" in many other contexts, e.g. name initials. A review of results detected that many of them linked to pages within the same website. Sites dealing with synthetic drugs all declared themselves to be of high competency in the field. In the same time, disclaimers excluded the publishers from liability or responsibility for the content of materials included. Many authors publish semi-anonymously, and do not specify their kind of qualification in the field. From the point of view of an information specialist, this is not sufficient to accept trustworthyness and reliability of the information provided. Moreover, the quality of contents can not be judged on that base. From professional view, the outcome of information retrieval is unsatisfying given the explosive increase of web-based AOD resources. These observations can be confirmed in the daily practice of librarians, but also in experience of other AOD professionals in research, policy, and prevention. According to findings of the Health on the Net Foundation on "health care professionals experience of the medical web", 59% of users have problems with searching (www.hon.ch/Survey/ResPoll/res_poll0.html).
Professional information needs are characterised by the following features:
Fast access to resources: Web based AOD information should be available within minutes. Reduction of time expense is of major importance to those whose work relates to answer requests, or function to effectively disseminate and transfer materials. Work overload is an additional factor confronting many professionals in the AOD area.
Accessibility / retrieval of specific resources: AOD professionals are in need for systematic access to basic literature, fact sheets, educational materials, research publications and articles, political decisions, legal texts, or AOD related news.
Up-to-dateness of resources: Accuracy, currency and actuality are important factors in the use of web based resources. This refers to the proper indication of publishing dates of any type of AOD information, as well as the maintenance regularity of website contents.
Evidence of origin and referentiality of sources: Web-based publications on AOD are suitable for professional use only when authors, publishers, and references are clearly indicated, quoted, and referred. References must be likely to lead users to the proper origin of any resource available on the web.
The main points of relevance for research can be summarised as 1) credibility, reliability and validity of resources, and 2) effectivity of retrieval on the web.
The original conception of the internet was not intended for information searching, but focused on accessibility of information by connections in a web structure (see 1.1.1.). The alternative approach to systematic retrieval on the www is the use of search engines. Search engines are programmes searching the content of the www in the keywords in the metatags of the website´s HTML source. Additionally, they operate robot or spider programmes to gather metadata and index websites to enable better and faster retrieval in their internal database system. The user can enter one or more search strings into a freetext field. The result is a list of web hyperlinks that are displayed in a ranking according to word or phrase matches.
In the context of searching, different meanings of the English term "drug" must be considered, which is also used for medical products without psychoactive effects.
The number of search engines currently available is countless. Some examples of popular search engines are Yahoo, ; Google, ; or Altavista, www.altavista.com .
Evidence shows in daily practice that the application of this method to find alcohol and drug related information on the web is of questionable effectivity.
Usually, the user is given large results, often consisting of several thousands of websites: An example query on "ecstasy + XTC" conducted in September 2002 (M. van der Heijden) produced the following results:
Google search à 13.800 web pages, Yahoo search à 10.100 web pages, and Altavista search à 6.498 websites.
Many search engines also offer a directory according to subject categories.
These consist of manually generated, general themes that lead via hyperlinks to another selection of more specific related sub-categories ordered in a tree structure. These display a listing of weblinks as a result. Difficulties for usability of the result relate not only to missing control of publisher, content and mission but also to the convergence of the subject classification: For example, in the Google directory, AOD information can be found in the subject category "recreation". In the Yahoo directory, it is in the subject section "health". Numbers of web references included in directories can vary, for example "ecstasy": Google directory à 43 websites, and Yahoo directory à 11 websites.
The limitations in coverage and effectivity of search engines has been clearly recognised. Main problems are incompleteness and unreliability. One factor is the limited capacity of search engines, covering / accessing only 40% of information available (6). Inconsistency of size and content of search results, which vary over time and can differ from one day to another, are subject to indexing fluctuations, document fluctuations and element fluctuations according to findings from the IRT working group. Repeated searching for known items is recommended. (www.cwi.nl/cwi/projects/IRT/ ). Additionally, the use of advanced, fieldoriented search facilities and correct use of boolean operators can help to specify the information and reduce the research result.
Other factors involved in the low quality of results relate to language limitations, and dominance of English within a multicultural world, and the inclusion of huge amounts of popular, commercially-oriented sites.
From the perspective of the user´s needs, results produced by search engines are too huge, and too indifferentiate to be useful, and mean a huge time expense to review. Especially in the AOD field, there is no guarantee on professionally valid content.
To investigate more in-depth the professional searching needs in the AOD area, a systematic user consulting on this issue is part of the project´s concept. Methodology and findings are referred to in 2.3. and reported in detail in Annex 7, user consulting report by Anne Singer.
1.2.3. Role of the libraries in the internet age
From their work definition, libraries are skilled in multiple techniques of information management. Activities and tasks of specialised libraries have developped and extended with the internet age. Basing on the traditional library services, today the role of libraries includes increasingly modern strategies of information management.
General and specialised libraries including those active in AOD, are confronted with an evolution of challenges and activities along with the development of the www. In the following overview, traditional and modern tasks are summarised.
Traditional library skills: Working fields and knowledge of libraries include literature acquisition, collection, storage, revision, abstracting, cataloging, classification and indexing. Systematic performance is aimed at the maintenance of continuous public services such as loaning, copying and ordering, and includes inter-loaning exchanges with other libraries. Tasks focus on the collection and administration of bibliographic metadata, and the categorisation of materials according to subjects and types. These are facilitated by electronical database technology: the use of computerised information storage and retrieval systems has been established through Europe since the 1960s. Standardised systems and formats allowed internal linking of several libraries.
In the AOD area, an explosion of publishing in many disciplines occurred during the 1990s, accompanying the rise of general awareness and social attention on AOD related matters. Moreover, a high amount of "grey literature" in the AOD field, such as institutional conceptions and reports, research reports, information materials and publications of federal authorities leads to difficult access to AOD publications outside systematic collection.
Evolution of library activities: In the context of emerging new technologies, and an increasingly digitised information environment, the scope of library work has extended to modern methods of information management. Through the 1990s, the www prooved an useful tool for libraries regarding accessibility and delivery of documents and bibliographic data. Much work has been done towards the development of suitable methodologies and applications that facilitate online services to the public. Availability of online searchable library catalogues has become common practise.
In the same time, the internet challenges libaries to cope with the information explosion, not only in the drugs field, which has evolved to the vast range of electronic publications. New information strategies are needed and invented for systematic discovery, administration and distribution of web-based information. One example is the emergence of virtual online libraries and archives (7).
Increasingly, specialised libraries organised their collaboration in networks and associations, in order to realise collaborative efforts in systematic knowledge organisation (8), and in order to promote exchange and systematic cooperation, and improve skills of their members (see 2.1.3.2.). The idea to create subject gateways, or discipline-based portals as "content mediators" of the www is repeatedly being performed by collaborative library efforts (9). Libraries perform a key role in research contributions within the library sciences, and information sciences.
Modern efforts to develop suitable ordering systems can base on approbated traditional library methods, i.e. the application and extension of the classical subject approach (10), and the use of thesauri and category based subject systems.
In her presentation at the 1999 ELISAD annual meeting, Lynn Robinson (11) pointed out the lack of suitable systems to organise web based information and proposed the subject approach as one possibility to create an ordering framework.
The information sciences can be defined as an interdisciplinary field concerned with the theoretical and practical concepts, as well as the technologies, laws, and industry dealing with knowledge transfer and the sources, generation, organisation, representation, processing, distribution, communication, and uses of information, as well as communications among users and their behavior as they seek to satisfy their information needs. Many national, and specialised public libraries are involved in according projects (see1.3.).
1.2.4. Conclusion on the general context of research
The internet is a vast and unorganised source of information which includes a large amount of misinformation especially in the alcohol and drugs area. Despite its potential for increasing knowledge in the fields of ATOD prevention, research, treatment and policy, the above factors threaten and compromise quality, validity and usability of web-based ATOD information. Given high degrees of complexity and fluctuation of web-based information, there is a high degree of relevance for research in the field. There is a need for careful evaluation of AOD internet resources. Available possibilities of information searching do not lead to results that can satisfy professional requirements. Systematic retrieval can best be achieved by subject access, and facilitated by specialised databases. Research in the field of information retrieval, including the development of suitable ordering structures have been recognised as a crucial task in the information and library sciences. Libraries are perceived to cover a central role in information and documentation research. Development of gateways and other documentation systems are defined as a central issue of the library sciences.
ELISAD European Gateway on Alcohol and other Drugs / Final Research and Activity Report December 2003
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