ELISAD European Gateway on Alcohol and other Drugs / Final Research and Activity Report December 2003 
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1.3. Analysis and comparison of existing information gateways and providers

1.3.1. Projects generally related to creation of subject gateways

There is a wide range of attempts to order web-based information and to establish quality filters in relation to specific working areas and subjects, as a central challenge of information science research. This is also the rationale of the European Union´s 5^th framework programme, IST: Creating technologies for an user-friendly information society, 1998-2002. Details of the programme are available at www.cordis.lu.

In the traditional information environment human intermediaries, such as publishers and librarians, filter and process information so that users can search catalogues and indexes of organised knowledge as opposed to raw data and disparate information.

Many academic libraries and institutions are currently looking for ways to help their users discover high quality information on the Internet in a quick and effective way.

Several libraries through Europe are involved in the development of subject oriented gateways. Subject gateways work on the same principle - they employ subject experts and information professionals to select, classify and catalogue Internet resources to aid search and retrieval for their users and thereby support systematic resource discovery.

Users are offered access to a database of Internet resource descriptions which they can search by keyword or browse by subject area. They can do this in the knowledge that they are looking at a quality controlled collection of resources.

A description of each resource is provided to help users assess its origin, content and nature, enabling them to decide if it is worth investigating further.

These principles can be summarised in a definition of a gateway as follows (12):

Information gateways are quality controlled information services that have the following characteristics:

1. an online service that provides links to numerous other sites or documents on the Internet

2. selection of resources in an intellectual process according to published quality and scope criteria (this excludes e.g. selection according to automatically measured popularity)

3. intellectually produced content descriptions, in the spectrum between short annotation and review (this excludes automatically extracted so-called summaries). A good but not necessary criterion is the existence of intellectually assigned keywords or controlled terms.

4. intellectually constructed browsing structure/classification (this excludes completely unstructured lists of links)

5. at least partly, manually generated (bibliographic) metadata for the individual resources

1.3.1.1. The European DESIRE project

Basic research activities in the information sciences field were founded by the European Union within the project "Development of a European Service for Information on Research and Education", DESIRE, which was conducted from July 1998 until June 2000. It was a collaboration between project partners working at ten institutions from four European countries - the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK. A detailed decription of the project scope is avaialbe online at http://www.desire.org  .

The project's focus was on enhancing existing European information networks for research users across Europe through research and development in three main areas of activity: Caching, Resource Discovery and Directory Services. The activities and research projects adjuncted to DESIRE are focused on practical development of the ideas in the above definition of a subject gateway, such as developing methodology and tools that provide the functionality needed for related online information systems, as well as promoting the implementation of subject gateways. Use of the software and procedures recommended by DESIRE includes the potential to create an international network of subject gateways which are all compatible and interoperable.

Results from the DESIRE project are tools provided for libraries and other institutions interested to set up subject based gateways. The most important materials are:
- the Information Gateways Handbook (www.desire.org/handbook ), which serves as a methodological guide for the set-up and maintenance of subject gateways.

- the search and retrieval technology ROADS (http://roads.lut.ac) 

- the Internet Detective Software (http://sosig.ac.uk/desire/internet-detective.html), an interactive tutorial which serves to identify and evaluate the quality of internet resources,

- gateways demonstrating good practice, actively using DESIRE related technologies, such as the DutchEss Dutch Electronic Subject Service (www.konbib.nl/dutchess) and the SOSIG Social Sciences Information Gateway (http://sosig.ac.uk).

1.3.1.2. The Renardus Project

A recent project based on the DESIRE study is RENARDUS, a gateway coordination project funded in the EU IST 5^th framework programme (www.cordis.lu/ist) from 2000 to 2002, led by the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (NL), involving 11 partner libraries through Europe. The result is available online at http://www.renardus.org  .

The RENARDUS broker service is a pilot for a meta-gateway, and facilitates subject oriented access to ca. 64.000 web resources records from 11 European subject gateways. In a distributed model, the catalogues of several gateways can be searched simultaneously in a single interface provided by Renardus, either by browsing through a hierarchy of subject categories, or by using the simple and advanced search options. Participating gateways follow organisational, metadata, and technical guidelines to enable a standardised format for retrieval. The service is directed at a public active in higher education and research. Subjects covered by the Renardus service include Computer and Information Science, Agriculture & Geography, Philosophy & Psychology, Religion, Social Sciences, Language, Science (Biology, Chemistry and Physics), Technology, Arts & Recreation, Literature and History.

1.3.2. Review of subject gateways in Health and Social sciences

The following review of subject gateways in the health field was performed in order to develop a structure and methodology in comparative focus.

1.3.2.1. Features of the Social Sciences Information Gateway SOSIG

The SOSIG Social Sciences Information Gateway can be accessed online at http://sosig.ac.uk . This project was set up in 1996 in the context of the DESIRE project and is coordinated by the Institute for Learning and Research Technology at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom (http://www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk). Additionally, 11 national and university libraries through the United Kingdom participate in the maintenance of SOSIG according to subject sections. SOSIG is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) http://www.esrc.ac.uk  and the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) http://www.jisc.ac.uk  

SOSIG is a fully-searchable subject-based catalogue of international Internet resources which includes more than 50.000 web pages in the social sciences field.

SOSIG aims to provide a trusted source of selected, high quality information to students and academics, researchers and practitioners active in the social sciences, business and law. It is part of the UK Resource Discovery Network.

The content of the SOSIG catalogue can be browsed in these subject sections:

AOD related resources are listed in the sub-category "Substance Misuse" within the Social welfare section.

The standardised browsing system according to types of resources includes collections of articles, individual articles, databases, books, companies, educational materials, governmental publications, GOV institutions, journals, mailing lists, news, NGOs, reference materials, research projects and centres, and resource guides. Some links are rated with an Editors Choice remark. Links are displayed with titles that link to the details view.

The metadata presented in the output view includes: Title, description, keywords, related subject section(s), resource type classifications, language and URL. SOSIG offers a free search on every screen that will search the whole catalogue or the subject section. Sosig offers an advanced fieldoriented search with possibility to chose a free search string within the whole catalogue or in specied sections, in the fields Title, Description, Keywords, Author, URL or all of these.

Records are indexed with keywords from 2 thesauri and can be searched within them. From the menue, an input form is accessible that allows to add and describe resources by the following bibliographic fields: Title, description of content, keywords, prefixed subject choice, country, languages(s), email address and URL, next to the senders name and email address.

1.3.2.2. Features of the OMNI Health and Medicine Gateway

The Health and Medicine Gateway OMNI (Organising Medical Networked Information) is available online at http://www.omni.ac.uk . It is created and coordinated by the University of Nottingham Greenfield Medical Library (www.nottingham.ac.uk) since 1998. Like SOSIG, it is a service maintained and provided by the RDN Resource Discovery Network (http://www.rdn.ac.uk).

The OMNI catalogue can be browsed by 74 NLM (National Library of Medicine) subject headings, and by the very detailed MeSH2002 headings, which consist of several hundreds of keywords. Each heading leads to a direct list of resources. The output format presents metadata, i.e. the title of the resource (= direct link), the description and keywords by which it is indexed.

OMNI features a simple and advanced search. An input form for web resource description is offered, including freetext fields for title, URL, administrator email, description, senders name and email address.

OMNI is part of the Health and Life Sciences gateway, BIOME (http://biome.ac.uk), and linked to the Animal Health gateway, VETGATE (http://vetgate.ac.uk), the Biological and Biomedical Research gateway, BIORES (http://bioresearch.ac.uk), the gateway of resources relating to the Natural World, NATURAL (http://nature.ac.uk) and the Argriculture, Food and Forestry gateway AGRIFOR (http://agrifor.ac.uk).

1.3.3. Exemplary review of gateways on drugs and addiction

1.3.3.1. Focus, structure and content of ADIN: Australian Drug Information Network

The Australian Drug Information Network, ADIN can be accessed online at www.adin.com.au . This portal is coordinated by the Australian Drug Foundation, Melbourne (www.adf.org.au). Conducted from 1999 to 2003, the pilot project ADIN has a large focus. Its objective is not only to provide access to web-based resources, but also to organisations and projects in Australia. Within the ADIN website, identification of cooperators and a quality assurance framework are available.

Currently, a number of 630 web references are included in ADIN (August 2002).

The ADIN website offers a simple (freetext) and professional (field oriented) search for drug related resources. These are ordered in thematic sections as follows:

ADIN offers a free search option, and can be searched by the user´s choice of checkboxes in these thematic areas. Since specific publications (= parts of websites) are included in ADIN, search results are highly unspecific even in the combined "professional" search.

Example: search for "ecstasy" + "recreational" + "resource materials" outputs 38 results, among them a wide range of specialised papers and newsclippings, where the search strings are matched but not forcably correspond to the main theme of the publication. This problem is even more evident when a specific substance is searched for in the freetext search. Example: the search string "cocaine" gives 4002 results, including fact sheets, scientific publications, media releases, and treatment references. These are from institutions and private publishers, displaying high degrees of variety, and overlapping with pages from the same websites. Most references are from US-american and Australian publishers, while some European sites are included. The total number of resources included is not evident.

Output screens display the following metadata: Title (= direct link to web resource), an abstract quoting 4 lines of the web resource content, date of inclusion to the catalogue, URL, a short reviewer´s comment, source (publisher institution), and country. An input form is available which allows to describe and contribute resources to the catalogue. It includes the following freetext fields: title, format, description, name of organisation, URL, contact email, phone, and person name, postal address and location, name of funder, URL, contact email, phone and person name, goals, audience, languages, launching date, costs, identification of issues addressed by resource, outcomes anticipated/achieved, good and bad practises, availability status and format, producers name, URL, contact email, phone, person, and postal address, purchase costs, evaluation status, documentation, contact details.

1.3.3.2. Focus, structure and content of Addictionsearch

The web portal "Addictionsearch" can be accessed online at www.addictionsearch.com . It is created in 2001 and maintained by the psychologist Emil Chiauzzi, Ph.D. Its objective is to provide structured access to web resources, focusing on research in the field. Inclusion of "well-respected, reliable" resources without any definition of these terms. A general reference is given to subscribe the HON principle of ethics, with a link to these and proof of revision of the addictionsearch.com website, dated June 2000.

Currently, an unknown number of web references are included in addictionsearch, which can be estimated to be 2-3 hundreds (August 2002).

Addiction search offers freetext searching and thematic browsing to find drug related web resources. Browsing is structured by thematic sections as follows:

Browsing output screens display the title of the resource (= link) and a short remark (1-3 lines) on its content, produced by the addictionsearch publisher.

From some browsing lists, e.g. organisations/US, a low degree of completeness can be observed, even although the collection includes mainly US resources.
The free search gives as results the internal links to thematic subsections of the addictionsearch website.

Example: search string "cocaine" produces 5 results, "counselling": 3 results, all of them internal links to the browsing headings, or to the archives sections of "featured links/resources". Resources listed in these sections are not specifically related to the search performed, but e.g. to marijuana, tobacco, web libraries, ect.

Combined searching even leads to lack of results. Example: searchstrings "ecstasy" + "girls": no matches. searchstrings "therapy" + "heroin": no matches.

This problem may relate to the fact that the metadata to be searched is not very specific nor extensive.

1.3.3.3. Focus, structure and content of Lasdrogas.net

During the course of the Elisad gateway project, a new AOD gateway in Europe emerged in late 2002 and was revised in 2003. The Spanish Gateway LasDrogas.net was published in 2002 by the Instituto para el Estudio de las Addiciones in Teneriffa, Canary Islands (IEA / www.ieanet.com). It is available online at www.lasdrogas.net  and not limited to Europe but aims at global coverage. Except for the main categories and subcategories headlines, 12 languages can be selected for the structural elements each result interface. In total, the catalogue contains 1482 links in 147 categories (October 2003). The browsing screen provides 11 main categories:

The LasDrogas ordering system is mainly based on geographical aspects, complemented by types of institutions and types of materials. In only 2 sections, a subject related ordering strategy has been employed.

Further menue options in LasDrogas.net are: top rated links, most popular links, new links, editor selection and search. A short editor´s mission statement can be found next to the copyright note. Catalogue input is possible online with a short form to select the category and sumbit title, URL and a short description. Websites submitted are undergoing revision before being displayed.

Results are displayed in the output screen, where each website title (= link) is annotated with a maximum of 5 lines abstract on the website content and publisher institution.The date of revision is published, as well as number of visits, rating, votes and comments provided by users. URLs are not listed.

Using the free search modus, evidence of the relation between query string used and search results are difficult to understand. For most results, matching is indicated by bold presentation of the search term, whereas in several cases the search string is is not visible. An explanation might be a search mechanism which works by an invisible set of keywords.

The thematic content of the links is not categorised by topics, e.g. psychoactive substances. According to search results, LasDRogas catalogue content seems to be focused mainly on legal addictions such as alcohol (292 results) or tobacco (170 results). Query examples with the terms "cannabis" gives 20 search results out of 1482 records, for "ecstasy" 12 links can be found (cocaine: 29, LSD: 4, opiate: 2 /opio:9). Since several institutions catalogued are dealing with a wide range of drugs, this result might pertain to the shortness of content descriptions in the catalogue.

LasDrogas.net is a useful collection for those seeking institutional websites from all over the world. Because the geographical categorisation principle differs largely from the subject approach and topic-related category principle promoted in the DESIRE example and developed for AOD matters in the Elisad gateway, the both catalogues are not comparable nor compatible with each other.

Other gateways in the field have been revisited that differ in scope, such as the Virtual Clearinghouse for Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drugs VCATOD, compiled by the Canadian Centre of Substance Abuse, Toronto (www.atod.org), or in technical principles. Without database supply, an effort to provide systematic access to drug websites is the drug guide, produced in a project of the Fachhochschule Fulda (Germany), available online at www.fh-fulda.de/projekte/drugs/index.htm. The directory includes website links ordered by subject categories in a stable collection of links with short descriptions. Given the changeability of the www, this procedere implies the need for continuous maintenance to avoid inclusion of "dead" links (404 errors).

1.3.4. Review of ethical standards and quality criteria for websites

There are several efforts in the information sciences field, to develop ethical standards and quality criteria for websites. The most important scientific results in the field of health and medicine have been revisited and are summarised as follows.

1.3.4.1. The HON Code of Conduct

One of the most wellknown ethical codes is resulting from the work of the Health on the Net foundation (HON), Switzerland, an International initiative established in 1995 (www.hon.ch). HON´s mission is to guide non-medical persons and medical practitioners to useful and reliable online medical and health information. HON provides leadership in setting ethical standards for Website developers. The HON code has since been adopted by more than 3000 websites worldwide.

One task of the HON team is the revision, registration and certification of websites in the health field to examine if they respect and correspond to their code of conduct

The main principles of the HON code of conduct are:

1. Authority - Any medical or health advice provided and hosted on this site will only be given by medically trained and qualified professionals unless a clear statement is made that a piece of advice offered is from a non-medically qualified individual or organisation.    

2. Complementarity - The information provided on this site is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site visitor and his/her existing physician.    

3. Confidentiality - Confidentiality of data relating to individual patients and visitors to a medical/health Web site, including their identity, is respected by this Web site. The Web site owners undertake to honour or exceed the legal requirements of medical/health information privacy that apply in the country and state where the Web site and mirror sites are located.    

4. Attribution - Where appropriate, information contained on this site will be supported by clear references to source data and, where possible, have specific HTML links to that data. The date when a clinical page was last modified will be clearly displayed (e.g. at the bottom of the page).  

5. Justifiability - Any claims relating to the benefits/performance of a specific treatment, commercial product or service will be supported by appropriate, balanced evidence in the manner outlined above in Principle 4..    

6. Transparency of authorship - The designers of this Web site will seek to provide information in the clearest possible manner and provide contact addresses for visitors that seek further information or support. The Webmaster will display his/her E-mail address clearly throughout the Web site.    

7. Transparency of sponsorship - Support for this Web site will be clearly identified, including the identities of commercial and non-commercial organisations that have contributed funding, services or material for the site.

8. Honesty in advertising & editorial policy - If advertising is a source of funding it will be clearly stated. A brief description of the advertising policy adopted by the Web site owners will be displayed on the site. Advertising and other promotional material will be presented to viewers in a manner and context that facilitates differentiation between it and the original material created by the institution operating the site.

1.3.4.1. The E-Health Code of Ethics

The Internet Healthcare Coalition (IHC, www.ihealthcoalition.org) has a slightly different approach. Their main principles are published at http://www.jmir.org/2000/2/e9/ by the e-Health Ethics Initiative and centered on

1. Candor - Evidence of organisations involved, organisational relations, and financial interests regarding the information published and their perception

2. Honesty - Reliability of truthful descriptions of products and services, and their efficacy, performance or benefits with regard to profitability and sale

3. Quality - Rigourous and fair evaluation and presentation of information, consistency of information with current scientific evidence available, clear indication of scientific references and/or professional experience, acknowledgement of controversial issues, comprehensivity, independency of editorial policy and practice, indication of dates of publishing and revision

4. Informed Consent - Disclosure of personal data from visitors collected by site owner, and active seeking of affirmative consent of site user, ensure informed decisions of users about providing personal data by indicating kinds of data, and intentions on who uses and/or distributes which data for which purpose

5. Privacy - Confidentiality and user protection regarding any health data, prevention of unauthorised access to personal data by adoptaion of suitable mechanisms

6. Professionalism in Online Health Care - Respect fundamental ethical obligations to patients and clients, subscription to medical codes, information of users about limitations of online health care

7. Responsible Partnering - Ensure affiliation and cooperation only with trustworthy organisations and websites that subscribe to similar ethical standards, and that abide to applicable law

8. Accountability - Indication of contact possibilities to site owner / administrator and staff, provide opportunity to users to give feedback on the website contents, taking seriously into account and respont to users´ concerns.

1.3.4.3. Other efforts in the field

There are several other activities in the field of ethical standards and quality criteria. One example is the European Union project E-Europe on health online EU Actions, concerned with the establishment of a set of quality criteria for health related websites, available at http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/action_plan/stimulate/ehealth/index_en.htm .

In the information sciences, many publications relate to systematical approaches in judging the quality of information contents of web based resources.
Another current project on the issue is conducted by PREVNET, an European network of drug professionals from various disciplines, connecting telematic methods with substance abuse prevention (www.prevnet.net). The Prevnet project is focusing on the evaluation of drug related websites. One objective is to adapt the more general health and medicine related ethical standards and quality criteria for suitability in the field of drug addiction and prevention websites.

Other attempts to guide and support users in retrieving and judging quality of web based info in the AOD fields are the Health oriented Information Quality (IQ) Tool, developed by the Health Summit Working Group (HSWG) that aims to educate consumers by helping them ask the right questions (http://hitiweb.mitretek.org/docs/policy.html), and the AOD initiative Join Together Online by the Boston Addiction Research Foundation Library (www.arf.org/isd/links/mainpage.html).

The results of these works have been analysed and used for the formulation of a quality criteria checklist for the evaluation of AOD websites (see 2.1.2.).

1.3.5. Conclusions and impact on project methodology

Review and analysis of current research had essential impact on the development of the ELISAD gateway project methodology. It was decided to follow good practise from these models in the basic points. The main results are summarised as follows:

Focus: There is no web portal for European resources in the drugs field. Gateways in the social sciences or medicine prove too general to meet the information requirements of drug professionals. Existing drug and addiction gateways are covering other geographical areas (Australia, USA /the America´s), while European resources are sometimes included sporadically but not in a systematic way. Accordingly, a suitable tool with European focus still has to be developed.

Tools: Within the DESIRE project, very useful tools and general standards to create subject gateways have been developed. To perform the project process, the group can learn and profit a lot of these experiences, advise and related publications. The Elisad gateway will adapt the working principles from DESIRE as far as possible. The Desire handbook serves as basic reference for the project work.

Data and storage: Every gateway generates sets of metadata about the web-based resources. These metadata are of varying degree of extensiveness. Generally, they are stored in a searchable online database. Quality of metadata seems to relate directly to the quality of search results produced. It was decided to collect more in-depth descriptive metadata according to the complexity of web resources (see 2.2.).

Each gateway website stores these metadada in a server database which is the technical base to generate temporary html documents displaying the data included. Creation of a suitable database format is part of the gateway project.

Structure / presentation: All information gateways chose a thematic ordering structure to browse information according to subjects, and other significant properties, like types of resources, or institutions, complemented by populations and environments. Ways of retrieval adapted are browsing by subject categories, complemented by free and field-oriented search options.
Quality of results: As a basic problem was identified the obvious difficulty to produce specific search results that really match the scope of the query.

Materials included: Most information gateways include not only websites as a whole, but specific publications and documents that represent parts, or pages of a website. Single URLs of these documents pages are the domain extensions of the according websites ("deeplinking"). The focus of these portals centers on types of resource.

The definition of resources to be described and added to the ELISAD gateway catalogue was subject to a group discussion in the Lisbon working group meeting (see Annex 3, Lisbon meeting minutes). Arguments pro and contra websites versus webpages were formulated and are summarised as follows:

The main argument pro deeplinking is the one-dimensionality of webpages and single documents, that makes the description a far less difficult and complicated process. Arguments contra deeplinking:

- changeability of ordering system and internal website URLs: since websites and their structure are changed in variable intervals by the producer, the URLs of single resources are subject to changes. For this reason, accessibility is not guaranteed over time. This would mean a problem of maintenance and updating with regard to the gateway catalogue, and a risk with regard to the claim of actuality.

- relative stability of website URLs: Accessibility and stability of general domains are featuring relative high degrees of durability, since these domains are bought /paid, and it is in the interest of serious website producers, to ensure that users will find their web-based presentation. Especially institutional providers are interested to establish and keep a comprehensive and significant URL for their websites.

- larger focus according to user´s needs: the Elisad gateway does not only want to provide access to single specific resources, but also serve as a means to facilitate contact to organisations in the AOD field that are present on the web.

Decisions: For the above reasons, it was decided to collect and describe entire websites. Exceptions were agreed only for the cases of large and more general governmental websites, where only one part or section is concerned with drug related affairs and according departments or fields of activitiy. Another exception could be specific AOD journals, that are part of larger publisher´s websites. (see 2.1.1., and Annex 2, Gateway Scope Policy). Furthermore, it was agreed that a suitable instrument will be needed and developed to collect metadata about complete websites (see 2.2.3.). Results from research into ethical standards and quality criteria for websites in the health fields were adapted to formulate selection criteria for the inclusion and exclusion of drug related websites (see 2.1.2.).

Limitations: The main problems challenging the project were recognised as the impossibility to achieve completeness of AOD web resources according to the high degree of distribution and fluctuation. The project aims to establish a basis set of data. The selection of the Elisad gateway catalogue is directed at professional usability. Another technical problem means to produce specific retrieval in search results given the complexity of materials described.

ELISAD European Gateway on Alcohol and other Drugs / Final Research and Activity Report December 2003 
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