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| This internet guide has been produced to assist you in accessing valuable information from a variety of governmental and private sector sources that will allow you to utilize the information super highway in your advocacy efforts. The resource book will help you identify information on the Academy’s position on a variety of public policy issues, allow you to e-mail federal and state representatives, will provide you with the text of federal legislation and regulations, present you with media contacts, inform you on how to join list-serves, newsgroups, etc. The material will also give you access to health journals/statistics and other data from reliable governmental sources that you can use in federal, state and local advocacy efforts. We hope you find this Guide useful and would appreciate your feedback and suggestions for ways to improve communicating this information. If you happen to come across interesting sites or discussion groups during your internet activities, it would be greatly appreciated if you would e-mail them or mail them to the address below, so they may be incorporated in future issues of this guide and shared with others. Thank you and happy surfing! American Academy of Pediatrics Washington Office 601 13th Street, NW, Suite 400 North Washington, DC 20005 800/336-5475 www.aap.org Disclaimer note: This Guide is a sampling of selected advocacy, medical, media, and other sites of interest. There are numerous sites which may be additional assistance to you in your efforts. Due to the nature of the on-going changes to the internet, some of these sites may in fact change or cease to exist in the future. INDEX AAP Web Site Medical Resources for Pediatrics
Newsgroups of Interest to Pediatricians Useful Pediatric Mailing Lists Media --Newspapers/TV Networks/News & Info/Radio Internet Tips and Tools URL Minder Bookmarks Internet Etiquette - Netiquette Glossary of Terms
OVERVIEW The Internet is a system of computers around the world that are able to communicate with each other. It provides access to vast amounts of information via electronic mail (e-mail), newsgroups (Usenet), mailing lists, and the World Wide Web (WWW). Given the vast amount of information that is available from the Internet, it is clear that it is a great source of information for child advocacy. It is the purpose of this resource book to provide a general overview of Internet services and tips, and also to provide specific helpful information relating to pediatrics and child advocacy. A great place to start is at http://www.learnthenet.com Pediatricians need to know almost nothing on how computers work or where they came from to navigate the web -- today’s graphical applications encourage the computer illiterate to connect and play. On a cautionary note, when using the Internet, keep in mind that the information obtained from it is not always accurate and that the information might come with viruses that can damage your computer. Although the Internet provides access to a plethora of information, it is not always accurate. Therefore, when using the Internet to obtain critical information, make sure to double-check the accuracy of the information with another source. In addition, because the Internet provides connection to a multitude of other computers, it is pretty easy to catch a virus while using the Internet. You can protect your computer by backing up your system frequently -- specifically before surfing the Internet. In addition, use virus protection and checking programs that will check for most viruses in material that you may download onto your computer. Note that e-mail messages themselves cannot directly infect your computer - but files that must be downloaded (like .ftp files) can infect your computer and should be scanned for viruses. Back to the IndexELECTRONIC MAIL (E-MAIL) Electronic mail provides a fast and convenient way to communicate. To reach somebody by e-mail, all you need is their address and access to an e-mail account. There are many different servers available for e-mail (America OnLine, CompuServe, Prodigy) and each have their own address systems. The basic principle is the same for each server, and once you learn how to use e-mail on one system it is easy to apply the basic principles to another system. It is helpful to know that e-mail addresses are not case sensitive and can be typed in capital letters or lower case. Through utilization of electronic mailing lists, pediatricians have developed news, chat and list group discussions. This creates the perfect environment to consult colleagues on clinical issues and send correspondence for peer review. One of the biggest problems with using e-mail is finding a person’s address. Often, when web sites have related e-mail, the address will be provided on the web page (or with the web site address). In addition, there are some e-mail directory services, and all can be accessed via the Internet. Internet search engines also provide e-mail addresses which can be obtained by searching for the person or organization you are trying to locate. If the address you end up with is incorrect, the message will bounce back to you (in minutes or days depending on the system). It is helpful to know that the last three letters (zones) of e-mail addresses (and web sites) usually indicate the type of organization: com for commercial organizations, edu for educational institutions, gov for U.S. government department, mil for military sites, org usually for non-profit organizations. E-MAIL ADDRESS DIRECTORIES
The World Wide Web provides many opportunities including, but not limited to, reading journals without paying subscriptions, receiving items the same day they are published, participating in online education for CME credits, entering sites of departments of pediatrics/professional organizations/pediatric practices/children’s hospitals/medical and surgical subspecialties and accessing pediatric software of interest. Pediatricians also can follow issue specific information and advocate on line by corresponding with their legislators and others. The World Wide Web (www) is a system that uses the Internet to link information on different computers around the world. To use the Web, you need only an Internet connection and a Web browser. Once inside the Web, the so-called, ‘hypertext’ allows the user to click on highlighted text to obtain access to another Web site. Hypertext is usually a different color than the remainder of the text, and it changes color once it has been accessed. Web site addresses are known as Uniform Resource Locators (URL). These provide a standardized system for naming network resources and for linking pages together. They usually consist of three parts, including document access type (http:// for hypertext), host computer (www for World Wide Web), and the path to the information (often the organization initials followed by .com). Be sure to enter the URL exactly as written as they tend to be case sensitive (unlike e-mail addresses). To access a Web site, the URL can be typed directly or selected from a list of ‘bookmarked’ URLs. Bookmarking is available with most Web browsers and allows you to save any URL at any time while using the Web. It is important to note that Web sites and URLs do change (as with any addresses). Fortunately, there is a free service that notifies the user whenever a Web site or URL changes. This service is called URL Minder and can be accessed at http://www.netmind.com">http://www.netmind.com/html/url-minder. A gateway is a computer that connects one network with another when the two are on different protocols. The University of Michigan and the Villanova Center for Information Law and Policy gateways are particularly useful for gaining access to government information.
SEARCH ENGINES A Search Engine consists of software used to search the World Wide Web and other information systems. Search engines are databases that store web pages. They index information so that when a user enters a search term the information can be retrieved quickly from the engine’s database. Subject indexes are similar to search engines as they sift through a database holding of internet URLs (addresses). However, subject indexes categorize sites into topical areas, which can be browsed as one would browse through a magazine. Subject indexes generally have fewer holding and less searching capability than a search engine, but they are excellent starting places when you are looking for information which can be categorized into a general topic. Yahoo and Magellan are the most popular. There are many, many search engines and all operate and search by varying relevant information. Search engines should be chosen depending on the features you need in a search engine at a particular time. No two search engine operate identically. "Meta Engines" are designed to search more than one engine at a time. This can be very useful for wide searches on a particular topic, but a drawback can be that the meta-engines often will not allow you to use all the search capabilities that would be available if the individual engine was being used. Also, because a number of search tools are being consulted at one time, the search is often slower. Good meta-engines are: Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com will display how many search engines found the number of your topic Profusion http://profusion.ittc.ukans.edu Same thing but can select which ones you want to search and gets rid of duplications. Savvy Search http://guaraldi.cs.colostate.edu:2000/form Unique in providing language versions of its search pages MetaCrawlwer http://www.lib.ua.edu/mcrawler.htm Anything and everything you want to know about search engines is located at http://www.searchenginewatch.com. One of the pages on Search Engine Watch has a very handy features comparison chart. Fabulous resource site for every search engine on the web. Other very exhaustive list of search engines can be found at Cyberstack Needle: http://home.revealed.net/albee/ and at Beaucoup http://www.beaucoup.com One of the more interesting activities, is to see who is linked to the Academy’s web site. You can see this by going to one of the search engines (except Yahoo) and in the search box type Link: http://www.aap.org The search engine will identify who the company/person is with a brief description and offer you the opportunity to visit their site. Many of the child health advocacy organizations are in fact linked to the Academy’s site. Each search engine has its own search syntax for forming Boolean searches. Search engines all have "Help" or "Tips" pages and they offer important and time saving information about how to use individual sites. One of the best help pages in AltaVista. Listed below are general methods for using search engines
Some useful search engines On the following page is a list of search engines. There are many search engines not specified in this table. For further reference, the University of Michigan provides a list of search engines which can be found at http://www.lib.umich.edu/hw/public.health/engines.html. A government search engine is available through My Virtual Reference Desk at http://www.refdesk.com/govsrch.html. Category-Based Engines - Use categories to perform searches. With a database of registered sites, these search engines search first for matching categories and then by matching text within the sites. Examples are Yahoo!, Infoseek, and Webcrawler. Concept-Based Engines - Attempt to intelligently relate words of the search request in order to find sites related to your search, but that would not otherwise be found using the designated search words. For example, these engines would search for ‘pediatrics’ if you entered ‘child health care’. Example is Excite.
The following Web sites might be helpful: List of Government Acronyms http://www.colorodo.edu/libraries/govpubs/alphabet/alpha.htm The Government Contractors Glossary http://www.kcilink.com/govcon/contractor/gcterms.html
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