Quality assurance in subject gateways: creating high quality portals on the Internet
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880010312686 |
| Pages | 38-48 |
| Author | Martin Belcher,Emma Place,Grainne Conole |
| Subject Matter | Education |
Quality assurance in
subject gateways:
creating high quality
portals on the Internet
Martin Belcher
Emma Place and
Grainne Conole
Introduction
This paper outlines a set of guidelines, which
have been developed to support the
development of quality subject gateways, and
which are underpinned by best practice in the
field. The paper will summarise the key
features of the guidelines, which were
packaged as an information gateways
handbook as part of the ``Development of a
European Service for Information on
Research and Education'' (DESIRE) project.
The handbook has been published on the
Web and is freely available (DESIRE, 1999a).
The DESIRE project aimed to produce
guidelines that would enable libraries and
research institutes in Europe, who were
setting up information gateways, to adopt
good practice based on existing and emerging
standards. (DESIRE, 1999b).
The guidelines are designed to provide a
quality assured procedure for the
development of large-scale information
gateways on the Internet. The handbook
offers a step-by-step guide, and points to
tools, examples and documentation that can
support the process. It is divided into three
sections to reflect the managerial, information
and technical issues that building a gateway
raises. The handbook aims, in particular, to
support the development of large-scale
gateways in Europe that can support
researchers looking for high quality research
information on the Internet. By adopting
standard practices, these have the potential to
form an international network of gateways
that can be cross-searched by researchers
across the continent.
This paper will outline the key components
of the guidelines and describe how they are
used to support a quality assured process.
The paper begins with a definition of
information gateways, including an
The authors
Martin Belcher is Project Manager for Internet
Development, Emma Place is Research Officer for the
SOSIG and DESIRE projects and Grainne Conole is
Director of the Institute for Learning and Research
Technology, all at the University of Bristol. E-mail:
m.belcher@bristol.ac.uk
Keywords
Quality assurance, Internet, Model,
Information management
Abstract
This paper presents the development of guidelines for
assuring quality and consistency in the creation of high
quality information gateways and portals on the Internet.
This method is presented as a transferable model for
quality assurance in the use and development of learning
technologies, and as an example of good practice in the
management of information on the Internet. The paper
demonstrates the importance of quality assurance as part
of the process, illustrating how structured guidelines can
be used to support the transfer of good practice.
Electronic access
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
http://www.emerald-library.com
This article uses information taken from ``The
DESIRE Information Gateways Handbook'',
which was collaboratively authored by the
following team: Martin Belcher, Dan Brickley, Phil
Cross, Debra Hiom, Emma Place (The Institute
for Learning and Reseach Technology, University
of Bristol), Michael Day, Rachel Heery and Andy
Powell (UKOLN, University of Bath), Yuri
Demchenko (TERENA, The Netherlands),
Traugott Koch (NetLab, University of Lund),
Marianne Peereboom (Koninklijke Bibliotheek,
The Netherlands), Fredrick Rybarczyk and Ann-
Sofie Zettergren (NetLab, University of Lund).
38
Quality Assurance in Education
Volume 8 .Number 1 .2000 .pp. 38±47
#MCB University Press .ISSN 0968-4883
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