NMAP: UK's nursing Internet gateway.
This article describes the development of NMAP, the UK academic gateway to high-quality Internet resources for Nurses, Midwives and Allied health Professionals. The service is described and the rationale for NMAP summarized, focusing on the increasing use of Internet resources in nursing education and practice. International concerns over the quality of health information available on the Internet are considered, and the approach adopted by NMAP to quality filtering described. The usage data and results of evaluation studies show the need for this type of Internet gateway, and some of the lessons may be relevant to others involved in developing national high-quality Internet gateways for nurses.
Ward
Rod
R
Faculty of Health and Social Care, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. Rod.Ward@UWE.ac.uk
Scrivener
Ross
R
Smart
Nicola
N
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D007373:Interinstitutional Relations; D020407:Internet / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009726:Nurses / Q000523:psychology; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D048108:Nursing Informatics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D009862:Online Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D013222:State Medicine / Q000458:organization & administration; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom