1. BIOME Evaluated Internet Resources in the Health and Life Sciences Best of the Web Workshop (Funded by the Higher Education Academy for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine) University of Nottingham Laurian Williamson BIOME Content Coordinator

2. Overview for the day Development of BIOME BIOME subject gateways and what they cover Web site evaluation issues and high-quality Web resources Virtual Training Suite Where to find teaching materials to support teaching and learning

3. eLib, OMNI and the RDN Electronic Libraries programme (eLib) began in 1994 http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/services/elib/ Development of a number of “subject gateways” – OMNI, SOSIG, EEVL 1998 – call for proposals to extend the work of the subject gateways Led to the development of the Resource Discovery Network (RDN) http://www.rdn.ac.uk/

4. RDN Hubs The RDN comprises a number of subject ‘Hubs’ BIOME – health and life sciences SOSIG – social sciences, law and business EEVL – engineering, maths and computing HUMBUL – humanities PSIgate – physical sciences ALTIS – sports, tourism and leisure GEsource – geography and environment Artifact – creative arts and industries

5. BIOME BIOME was launched 2000 Free access to a collection of hand selected, evaluated, quality Internet resources in the health and life sciences Aimed primarily at the UK HE and FE communities, but attracts users from other communities including the NHS

6. BIOME Partners University of Nottingham (core team) Reading University Oxford University Royal Free Hospital Royal Veterinary College Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons Royal College of Nursing Royal College of Midwives Chartered Society of Physiotherapy University of the West of England, Bristol MIDIRS

7. BIOME Subject Scope BIOME comprises six subject gateways OMNI – Health and Medicine NMAP – Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health BioResearch – Biological Sciences AgriFor – Agriculture, Food and Forestry VetGate – Animal Health Natural Selection – the Natural World

8. Natural Selection The Natural World OMNI (Est. 1995) Health & Medicine BioResearch Biological Sciences VetGate Animal Health The BIOME Gateways AgriFor Agriculture, Food & Forestry NMAP (Est. 2001) Nursing, Midwifery, Allied Health

9. The NMAP Subject Gateway NMAP is a partnership between the University of Nottingham, the University of the West of England, and the Royal College of Nursing NMAP is provided by a team of information and subject specialists NMAP provides access to evaluated, quality Internet resources covering Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health

10. BIOME Evaluation Guidelines http://biome.ac.uk/guidelines/eval/ BIOME approach assesses the applicability of each information resource for its inclusion into BIOME We are concerned with indirect indicators of quality The onus will always lie with the individual BIOME user in deciding whether the resource is right for them

11. Alternative and Complementary Medicine BIOME Guidelines developed for complementary and alternative medicine Evolving document available at http://biome.ac.uk/guidelines/eval/cam. html Due to the ‘controversial’ nature of this topic, separate guidelines had to be developed

12. Resource Discovery for BIOME New resources are evaluated and included on a weekly basis for each gateway Monitoring on a weekly basis key Web sites BIOME currently contains over 30,000 resources

13. BIOME Collaborations NHS Direct Online in 1999 and 2001 National Electronic Library for Health (NeLH) LTSN/RDN Interoperability Project –health cluster http://www.ltsn-01.ac.uk/interoperability HONNI (Health on the Net Northern Ireland) http://www.honni.qub.ac.uk/ NHS Scotland eLibrary http://www.elib.scot.nhs.uk/portal/elib/pages/index.aspx

14. What can academics use the Internet for? Teaching and learning Continuing Professional Development Maintaining current awareness of activities within their subject field Keeping up with HE news Making professional contacts Finding data, images, video and film

15. Pros and cons The Internet is a powerful international source of information Internet usage is growing Repository of a vast amount of information Information overload? Huge powerful search engines Poor quality information Plagiarism

16. Searching and browsing Demonstration of features and services provided by BIOME Hands-on practical session

17. And finally…. November 2005 –Happy Birthday OMNI! General enquiries to help@biome.ac.uk BIOME mailing list http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/biome.ht ml BIOME Content Coordinator laurian.williamson@nottingham.ac.uk