November - December 2014
- Details
- Category: Editorial
- Last Updated on Wednesday, 03 December 2014 13:10
- Written by Stavros Hatzopoulos
- Hits: 6072
Continuing our discussion from last editorial I was pinpointing that the organization of the information in the Portal was designed with strict scientific criteria in mind, i.e. as a service to the the Hearing Scientist / Audiologist. To provide a partial service to the non-professional audience thematic channels in the FORUM space were dedicated to a greater non-professional public, but only this year we have realized that we need more information for the ordinary non-professional people, mainly for families who seek information on hearing deficits and intervention strategies (hearing aids, rehab, cochlear implants, speech therapy approaches etc).
We have considered various strategies .. with the most obvious being the division of the material into two containers one for the scientific use and one for the non-professional. This solution was way -off our possibilities due to the financial restrictions we face the last few years (and maintaining a FREE Portal .. is an economic adventure). We STILL don't have a definite answer on how to assist this important category of users. The Portal material has to be expanded .. and the task of the Portal user is to find it easily . Of course we need to make the exposure of non-technical material an easy process not buried in endless menus ... and although this seems very straight-forward .. it is difficult to implement easily. Nevertheless this is going to be our objective for the remaining 2014 and for the whole 2015.
It would be nice to hear your opinion in this issue, since the OAE Portal is a Open Access depository of Knowledge. It would be a great privilege for me and my collaborators to listen what you have to say. So please drop us a line and tell us what you think about the non-professional entries in the Portal pages.
A partial solution to the exposure of material for non-professionals is the possibility to add dedicated channels in the FORUM space. From this November you can find in the FORUM space a thematic channel dedicated to Cochlear Implants and the information which arrives to us from the families of the implanted patients. In this channel the attention will be focused on young patients and their families .. so that the information can be easily shared among other interested parties. I this point we should thank the Institute of Physiology and Pathology in Warsaw , because not only they sponsor the general OAE activities of the OAE Portal but they have provided valuable information from the implanted patients of Prof. Skarzinsky and his team.
I should also clarify that the Cochlear Implant Channel of the main FORUM will be dedicated mainly to issues related with post screening conditions (the Intervention phase of a EDHI program)