Key elements of a successful CIS: Finding reliable sources of information UICC, ICISG, Washington 2006 Ingrid Aubry, Manager Cancer Awareness System, French National Cancer Institute

Context and mission Cancer Plan 2003 Improve delivery of valid, up-to-date cancer information towards the public Set up information quality standards CIS : telephone only, knowledge database, general medical information and counselling

What is a reliable source of information? Quality information is Useful information Objective information Relevant information

What do you need reliable information for? To guarantee the quality of the information delivered by your service To update your knowledge database To recommend further reading To quickly find missing information

Cancer information Largely available on the Internet 79% of Internet users look for health information HINTS database (NCI) shows that people look first on the Internet Information professionals know it’s not always quality information Added-value of CIS is to help your users find and identify reliable information

Criteria of reliable sources Criteria for ranking sources: Netscoring® http://www.chu-rouen.fr/netscoring/netscoringeng.html National Cancer Institute http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Information/internet Health on the Net http://www.hon.ch/

Basic criteria for reliable information Institutions sites, well-known organisations Consider possible conflicts of interest Consider relevance and usefulness Peer-review procedure or editorial board Regular update (“what’s new” section) Accurate contents (bibliographic citations) Easy browsing and quality design

How to select reliable sources of information? You may collect information from reliable sources only You may get all the information checked You may rank information sources In any case, you will need to define a strict process.

Our criteria All types of sources are included Sources are ranked according to quality criteria All documents are ranked according to their source of origin Documents may be reviewed by experts who attribute an accuracy level and submit an expert’s report