ELISAD European Gateway on Alcohol and other Drugs / Final Research and Activity Report December 2003 
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2.3. Assessment and analysis of professional needs: user consultation

The examination of professional requirements for web-based information in the AOD field is part of the research process. The gateway project defines its main target group as professionals in the AOD fields. Input from this distributed and multinational group is considered to be of basic importance to create and provide a suitable tool.

For a detailed description of the user consulting process and findings, see the user consultation report compiled by Anne Singer (Annex 7).

The evaluation of the gateway website prototype, including the user interfaces and the catalogue retrieval function, has been subject to the second survey conducted in 2003. For a detailed description of this evaluation and related results, see the evaluation report compiled by Anne Singer (Annex 8).

The user consulting concept includes 3 main phases that are summarised below:

2.3.1. Identification of prospective AOD gateway users

An initial smaple of n = 147 future gateway users (GUs) were found by snowballing within institutions through Europe and mailinglists, covering more than 1000 persons within the professional scope of ELISAD members. Additional interested AOD professionals are expected to join the sample successively during the project course.

2.3.2. Repeated questionnaire survey

Two questionnaires have been created and used in the follow-up survey. The first questionnaire 1 was designed focusing on the types of user, his/her uses of the www, and subjects related to information queries. It was translated in 3 languages: English, French, and German. The second questionnaire 2 motivates users to test the gateway interface in order to investigate the functions, and suitability of the gateway website pilot in 2003.

2.3.3. Analysis of findings and application of results in the research process:

The survey shed light on keywords used and types of web-based information requested. Moreover, details on expectations of GUs about the professional value and services to be provided by the AOD gateway were analysed, most of them focusing on specific subjects and types of documents. The impact of these findings have been considered in the website descriptions (data collection), and the gateway website conception.

2.4. Promotion of the Elisad gateway

The promotion concept of the project encompassed an extensive scope of activities in order to promote its activities within the Elisad network and to external users with professional background in the health area and AOD field. Several media were produced to promote the Elisad gateway project, and distributed in various contexts.

For a detailed description on promotion actions, see the promotion reports compiled by Anne Singer, ELISAD general secretary, performing the promotional activities (Annex 23).

More issues relating to project promotion included the professional lay-outing of project products, typography, and exchanges with participants and users.
Promotion tasks included the representation of the Elisad association in the project group and general support of the project coordination by internal communications, Elisad members networking and maintenance of motivation by monthly sendings of the group internal GatewayNewsletter (cf Annex 12). The Elisad project promotion tasks were closely related to the conceptional process and the methodological development of the project.

A general overview of project promotion activities can be summarised as follows:

2.4.1. Project presentation at international conferences:

The conception and objectives of the ELISAD gateway project were promoted at several conferences. Examples are the SALIS (Substance Abuse Librarians and Information Specialists) Annual meeting in Washington (USA), April 16-22, 2002 (Susanna Prepeliczay), and the PREVNET conference "Telematics in Prevention" in Athens (Greece), March 15-17, 2002 (Anne Singer, Marianne van der Heijden).
A basic presentation has been prepared (see Annex 9) which has been used by several members, including the 2003 SALIS conference in Alaska (Jorunn Moen).

2.4.2. Presentation of the project on the WWW

The conception and objectives of the project are presented on several websites. This includes the ELISAD website (elisad.org) in the section Gateway, the ARCHIDO website (www.archido.de) in the section European Projects, the Drugscope website (www.drugscope.org.uk) in the section Library and Information Services, and the website of the European Union www.europa.eu.int  with a project description available at the Commission of Public Health "funded projects" section. www.europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph/programmes/drugs/fp01_list.htm .

In the 2nd phase of the project, internet promotion was extended to all project participants: Using its logo, each institution involved links to the gateway catalogue (cf. 3.2.4.).

2.4.3. Publishing the project in journals and newsletters

The concept and objectives of the ELISAD gateway project have been reported and published by several participants in several journals and newsletters in the AOD field through Europe. Some examples are the EMCDDA Newsletter "drugnet Europe", the Drugscope Newsletter, the ELISAD Electronic Journal, the TOXIBASE Journal, and the SALIS News in the USA. Press releases were sent to national journals in the participating countries. An article written by Anne Singer describes the benefits of information provided by the gateway catalogue in the PEDRO journal.

2.4.4. Creation and distribution of promotional materials

In order to raise attention of health professionals and AOD experts towards the gateway as an useful professional tool, flyers and mousepads have been designed and sent to near 3000 addresses. Within the promotional address directory, contacts from all project participants and from Elisad network members have been used.

Additional tasks performed by the Elisad public relations officer are summarised as follows:

2.5. Training in the context of the gateway project

2.5.1. Continued training of ELISAD members

Training within Elisad focused to date mainly on the participants of the gateway working group, to ensure good performance of project related tasks. Lessons, discussions and practical exercises were part of all meetings of the working group from 2000-2003 in Lisbon, Bremen, Utrecht and Dublin. In relation with topics of discussion, trainings were performed by several project experts: Marianne van der Heijden, Thomas Rouault, Anne Singer and Susanna Prepeliczay.

Working group trainings included the review and analysis of existing information systems and gateways in the social, health, and AOD field. Lectures and practical trials focused on the content and application of quality criteria in the evaluation of AOD websites. Emphasis was then on the correct use and interpretation of the data collection tool (online form, see 2.2.3.) to ensure high quality and consistency of the catalogue records.

Main issues from the gateway working group were additionally forming part of the ELISAD Annual meetings (Prague 2000, Stockholm 2001), including all ELISAD members present in these conferences. In this frame, lectures and workshops focused on themes related to quality and evaluation of web-based information resources.This practice will be continued during the coming ELISAD Annual Meetings.

To ensure future maintenance of the European gateway on alcohol and drugs, it is intended to conceptualise a curriculum of training modules for Elisad members on a regular base, to enable drug librarians to correctly add and revise data, and administrate the gateway database to guarantee its currency. Within these training units, it will be possible to achieve according certificates of competence for persons responsible for the maintenance of the ELISAD gateway.

2.5.2. Performance of explorative university lecture

In the context of academic education offered by BISDRO, an university lecture entitled "Drogen im WWW", VAK 08-851 was performed by Stephan Quensel and Susanna Prepeliczay during the 2002 summer semester for 2 hours per week (see Annex 13). It was targetted to students of the social sciences and was attended by 12 participants from related branches, such as sociology, political sciences, social paedagogics and psychology.

Content of the lectures focused on methods of effective web searching, identification and evaluation of alcohol and drug related websites, and systematic approaches to web based information.

The course included a practical trial to build a thematic oriented "drug portal", the creation of a subject oriented ordering structure, and basics of webpublishing. Students achieved study proofs for performance of a subject related searches, and the compilation of corresponding listings of weblinks, focused e.g. on tobacco, drug services, parents etc. with short content descriptions. These links were then added to the "browsing tree" of the drug portal pages. The result of the course can be accessed at the BISDRO website www.bisdro.uni-bremen.de/~sozdrog.

2.5.3. Training adjuncted to the EMCDDA´s CEECs project

In the framework of cooperation between ELISAD and the EMCDDA (see also 2.1.4.2.), a training with participants from the Central and Eastern European candidate countries (CEECs) has been performed on September 5 and 6, 2002 at the university Bremen. This activity forms part of the Phare project funded by the European Commission. Its objective is to support integration of the CEECs to the European Union. This includes the identification of prospective National Focal Points in each country, and the training of their staff in order to prepare good performance of the tasks requested by the EMCDDA. The PHARE CEECs cooperation project is coordinated by Roumen Sedefov.

The Elisad internet training was performed by Marianne van der Heijden, Bureau Andromeda (NL) and Susanna Prepeliczay, ARCHIDO (DE).
Participants from 10 countries, including Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, were AOD professionals with qualifications in sociology, and information technology.

The programme of this 2-days fulltime training unit (see Annex 13) covered lectures and practical exercises on web searching, types of web-based resources, identification and evaluation of websites, theoretical background and application of quality criteria. Research approaches into online information systems and demonstrations of good practice, a presentation of objectives, methodology and current state of the ELISAD gateway project, as well as a practical exercise on generating website descriptions for the gateway catalogue completed the training session. The programme and content of the CEECs training will be published by the EMCDDA at the REITOX website (www.reitox.emcdda.org) in September 2002.
Thanks to this joint training activity, personal contacts to experts in Eastern European countries were established and will be maintained throughout the project in cooperation with the Czech participant Hana Sovinova, to ensure data input on AOD websites in these countries.

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