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These standards cover both general site and resource specific issues. HealthInsite aims to route users quickly to useful information - hence it will generally direct users to individual resources rather than Web sites or segments of sites. Accordingly the standards are focused at resource level rather than site level. In addition, much of the detail is focused on 'documents' and similar resources. However, in general, the same principles apply to other resource types e.g. multimedia.
HealthInsite standards are updated, in consultation with partners, as the technical environment changes and requirements vary.
The standards fall into five areas:
- quality of information - qualifications of creators, accuracy, appropriateness for target audience, documentation of source material, clearance procedures
- authentication - clear and explicit statements of title, creator, publisher and date
- usability - navigation, information architecture, markup and presentation of information
- accessibility - catering for a range of user hardware and software and for people with disabilities
- metadata requirements.
Ideally HealthInsite partner sites will be excellent in all these areas. In reality, sites and standards have been evolving and, particularly on large older sites, not all resources meet current standards. HealthInsite will link directly only to those selected resources that do meet its standards.
For HealthInsite partner sites, all selected HTML pages will be accessible via the text search engine. Metadata for each resource enables more precise sorting of search results and retrieval of relevant items for display on HealthInsite topic pages.
The role of partners, in consultation with the HealthInsite Editorial Team, is to:
- identify and evaluate resources for possible inclusion on HealthInsite
- create and maintain resources and the corresponding metadata records
- advise the Editorial Team of the overall status of the partner site with respect to the publishing standards
- check against the publishing standards when planning a site upgrade
- advise the Editorial Team on site improvement progress and major site changes, including URL changes.
The types of resources selected for HealthInsite are:
- homepages (representing whole sites)
- individual publications, including factsheets and brochures
- information about a health topic
- information about services
- broad level information about an organisation
- navigation pages, where these provide a useful entry point to part of a site.
Resources intended for consumer audiences or for health professionals will be considered, as will resources of general interest. To be selected, resources and sites must satisfy the 'required' standards described in this document.
Publishing Standards for HealthInsite v5 June 2007
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