The Best of the Pediatric Internet

7/3/97

Most Web sites offer a set of links to other resources on the Internet. Web site managers offer these links to help users of their sites navigate the bewildering array of Web pages, mailing lists, file archives, and other Internet resources that are related to the original Web site. The AAP's Web site has not contained these external links, because of the legitimate concern that such external links will constitute an endorsement by the Academy of information contained at the linked sites. This lack of external links inhibits the usefulness of the AAP's Web site, which could--and should--become a regular stop on every pediatrician's Web session.

Starting in August of 1997, the AAP will sponsor a section of its Web site called "The Best of the Pediatric Internet: Reviews of Internet Resources by AAP Fellows." Far from being an official "endorsement" by the Academy of any particular entity on the Internet, this section of the site at <http://www.aap.org> provides an area where AAP Fellows can review and organize those web sites and mailing lists which are truly useful to the practicing pediatrician. The site will be edited by Andy Spooner, MD, FAAP (spooner@uab.edu). If you are interested in doing reviews for this news area of the AAP Web site, please contact him.

Criteria for inclusion in "The Best of the Pediatric Internet" are:

1. Freedom from Commercial Influence. No Internet resource (IR) listed on the AAP index can contain significant commercial content. This includes:
   1. IRs whose purpose it is to sell a product or provide a service for profit. Some IRs will have sections devoted to commercial activity, but to be acceptable this commerical activity must not be an apparent primary objective of the IR.
   2. IRs which espouse or require the use of a particular commercial product, including a particular Web browser, operating system, or other software product. Listed Web sites requiring plug-ins should use only freely available, cross-platform products.
2. Clearly Identified Professional Content Provider. Each IR should identify a person or organization who is putting a professional reputation on the line when providing content, and who appears to be ready to respond to questions regarding the content of the site. This person or organization must acknowledge that he or she is being identified as the responsible content provider in the AAP listing. If this provider is an individual, he or she:
   1. Must have reasonable credentials to support the content provided, e.g., a Ph.D. in physics could not stake a valid claim as content provider for a Lyme disease Web site.
   2. May or may not be a pediatrician, a Fellow of the Academy, or even a physician; nutritionists, nurses, therapists, and other professionals may qualify.
3. Clearly Identified Administrator. Each IR should identify a person or organization who acknowledges responsibility for the administration of the IR.
4. Accessibility of Content. IRs listed on the AAP site should be organized or searchable (if applicable) and updated regularly, as applicable. They should not require special software other than what is commonly available for Internet access on commonly owned personal computers. It is impossible to spell out explicit criteria along these lines, but IRs requiring extraordinary measures like the use of software or equipment available to only a minority of Internet users (as measured by SPA or GVUC surverys) would be excluded.
5. Largest Possible Granularity. "Granularity" in this context refers to the size of a subcomponent of a Web site. The AAP index should not index a smaller portion of a Web site when a larger one would still fall into the scope of the AAP index. For example, it would be inappropriate for the AAP Index to contain 48 links to each of 48 guides to common pediatric drugs when a single link to the Web site containing the information on the 48 drugs will achieve the same purpose. Some flexibility on this rule would be required, but one link per resource should be the norm.
6. Unique Links. In general, an IR will have one link in the AAP Index, except in those instances where categorization of the links in the index creates more than one logical place. For example, an on-line journal on infectious Diseases might logically go under "Infectious Disease" and "Journals." In cases like this, a cross-link in the hierarchy would be implemented (rather than including the descriptive content twice).
7. No Links to other Pediatric Indexes.

These criteria do NOT include any reference to conformance to Academy recommendations or guidelines. It would be infeasible to cross check every statement on an IR against the Policy Reference Guide. Even if this task could be accomplished, the fluid nature of the Internet would invalidate any such "AAP Compliant" certification next time the IR changed.