Medicine,
Mind and Adolescence 2002, XVII, 1-2
SCIENTIFIC AND EDUCATIONAL PORTAL
Giuseppe R. Brera1
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The purpose of a scientific and educational portal is to promote all international, scientific contributions made by the community of researchers and clinicians who, together, share these principal, ethical objectives: the search for truth, international cooperation and solidarity. A second, yet minor ethical objective is the improvement of technical, telematic instruments of communication. This permits a rapid exchange and retrieval of information, and the construction of the scientific community. Researchers and/or clinicians in the field could partake by presenting abstracts of their own and of those works they deem important for both the international, scientific community, and for their personal file. These may be used in future publications of clinical and scientific works made available to the world through online journals.
The main areas of the portal’s organization are both structural (Why, What and Who) and functional nature (How).
Structural areas:
1. Significance, ethical values, enthusiasm, motivations
2. Direction
3. Persons
4. Coordination among collaborators and secretariat
5. Scientific area
6. Clinical area
7. Educational area
8. Communication
9. Publishing area
10. Courses and announcements of events
11. News on portal activity
12. Administration
13. Quality evaluation
Functional areas:
1. Technical support and logistic area
2. Seminars on skills and techniques for the use of the portal.
3. Subscription and rules of participation
4. Forums, organization, discussion and moderation
5. Mailing and chat among subscribers
6. Organization of sections and topics
7. Publishing articles on section and topics
8. Involvement and cooperation of scientists and clinicians
9. Learning on line
10. Organization of data-bank
11. Involvement and cooperation among scientific societies
12. Fund raising for research
13. Organization of clinical facilities on line (where the portal addresses
the promotion of health)
14. Definition of quality processes and procedures
15. Web-Links
16. Implementation of collaborators’ skills
Problems are presented through: the permanence of ethical values in the collaborators themselves, enthusiasm and motivation, financial support, adequacy and quality of technical instruments, the skills and cooperation of the administrators of information, simple and adequate quality procedures such as: storage, retrieval, rapid access, and rapid update of information.
Key Words: Adolescence, Research, Portal, Communication, Internet.
1. Correspondence to: Giuseppe R. Brera, Rector of Ambrosiana University, President of SIAd, V.le Romagna 51, 20133 Milano (Italy). E-mail: gbrera@unambro.it.
