Quality control

The day-to-day maintenance (including currency, accuracy, content inclusion and quality control) of the PHC RIS website is done by the information and website coordinator, with help from the administrator and web database programmers. However, PHC RIS also have a Web Development Team, who meet to oversee and discuss major changes, projects and activities related to the PHC RIS website.

The PHC RIS website adheres to many web standards and protocols, including the Guidelines for Commonwealth Information Published in Electronic Formats and The Guide to Minimum Web Site Standards - Electronic Publishing. The PHC RIS website is also endorsed by Health On Net (HON), which means the PHC RIS website meets the Eight Principles of the HON Code of Conduct (HON 2003) and reviewed regularly. The PHC RIS website displays the HON symbol and more information about the PHC RIS endorsement can be found at http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Conduct.html?HONConduct564514

The PHC RIS website also adheres to a series of internal publishing protocols, including standardised formatting, design and linking, much of which is controlled through cascading style sheets. This ensures consistency in design and layout throughout the website.

The content included on the PHC RIS website, including links to external organisations, has been evaluated by PHC RIS staff according to the main criteria of: accuracy, authority, objectivity, currency and coverage. PHC RIS also seeks opinions and feedback about content from key stakeholders within relevant targetted fields.

Some resources used to develop our criteria are:

• Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll LLP. (2003). Evaluating the Quality of Information on the Internet in The Virtual Chase (viewed 27 September 2005) http://www.virtualchase.com/quality/index.html
• Cornell University Library. (1998). Five Criteria for Evaluating Web Pages (viewed 27 September 2005)http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/webcrit.html
• Kim P, Eng T, Deering MJ, Maxfield A. (1999). Published Criteria For Evaluating Health Related Web Sites: Review. (viewed 27 September 2005)http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/318/7184/647
• Lehigh University Library (2002). Criteria for Evaluating Web Resources in Research Guide to Library and Online Resources. (viewed 27 September 2005)http://www.lehigh.edu/library/guides/choices.html#Criteria
• Smith A. (1997). Criteria for Evaluation of Internet Information Resources (viewed 27 September 2005) http://www2.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/index.htm
• Smith A. (2003). Evaluation of Information Sources (viewed 18 December 2003) http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/evaln.htm
• US National Library of Medicine & National Institutes of Health. (2003). MEDLINEplus Guide to Health Web Surfing (viewed 27 September 2005) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/healthywebsurfing.html
• US National Library of Medicine & National Institutes of Health. (2003). MEDLINEplus Evaluating Health Information (viewed 27 September 2005) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/evaluatinghealthinformation.html

All links contained in the PHC RIS website are also periodically checked to ensure accuracy.