Selection Criteria & Scope Policy

This section sets out the selection criteria for inclusion in ItrainOnline, along with the scope of materials covered by the site. You may also want to look at some more extended evaluation and cataloguing guidelines which guide our editors.

Selection of materials or links for inclusion within ItrainOnline

Resources and materials should help meet ItrainOnline's stated objectives and the information needs of the ItainOnline target users, which are:

• To provide a selection of the best and most relevant computer and Internet training resources for development and social change.
• To provide access to high quality and appropriate information that is suited to the ways development organizations and civil society groups in the South learn about and use ICTs.
• To concentrate on training and "how-to" guides for development organizations and civil society groups.

Do the materials meet the agreed ItrainOnline quality control criteria?

Positive criteria -in deciding what to include, ItrainOnline has prioritised:

• Resources that can be classified as training materials (i.e. useful in delivering training to groups or as part of individual training and skills development)
• Resources which are particularly relevant for the development community
• Resources which are of exceptionally high quality
• Resources which are comprehensive (e.g. gateways/portals)
• Resources which are of acceptable quality and cover a topic on which little information is available

Negative criteria - resources will NOT be included:

• If they are outdated/not actively maintained
• If they are just lists of links to other resources
• If they are obviously inaccurate
• If they are commercial or obviously inappropriate for the NGO/development community
• If they are aimed at only one very specialized audience (e.g. staff of a particular organization using in-house systems)
• If they are badly designed, difficult to navigate, inaccessible to low-bandwidth users
• If they are badly written or use slang which non-English speakers will find difficult to understand

Scope Policy

This document is the scope policy for the ItrainOnline resources catalogue. Any resources which fall outside the scope criteria of this document should be automatically rejected. Resources within the scope of the document will be assessed according to ItrainOnline's quality selection criteria. Information Coverage

Subject Matter

Only information of relevance to people involved with sharing Internet related information within the development, not for profit and charity sectors will be included in the ItrainOnline resources catalogue.

Site the site index for a list of subjects currently covered by the ItrainOnline resources catalogue.

Resources which contain information on potentially illegal areas such as hacking will be excluded.

Acceptable Sources

Information from academic, government, commercial, trade and industry, non-profit and private sources are all acceptable provided that they fall under the acceptable subject matter criteria. Pages that are maintained by students will be considered although these are less likely to be of a durable nature.

Acceptable Types of Resources

Resources should be available on the Internet. Information intended for use only by an individual or local group is unacceptable. Resources consisting entirely of links to other resources will be rejected unless there is substantial value added information by means of annotations, etc.

Advertising

Resources that consist solely or mainly of advertising will be excluded from ItrainOnline.

Geographical Coverage and Restrictions

There are no geographical restraints on the coverage of resources. However, particular emphasis will be placed on resources from the South.

Language

Resources in any language will be accepted, indeed encouraged. Although the primary ItrainOnline site is based in English, there are also Spanish and French sites, as well as resources in other languages.

Access Issues

Technology

Resources using advanced WWW technology (Java applications, frames, etc.) will be considered but users will be given appropriate warning in the catalogue record that the resource is dependent on suitable technology.

Cost

Commercial or fee based resources will be considered but appropriate information on cost must be provided to the user in the catalogue record.

Registration

Resources which require the user to register before use will be considered but appropriate information on registration must be provided to the user in the catalogue record.

Resource Description

Metadata

There should be sufficient information within the resource to create a catalogue record. The minimum amount of information would be a title, URL and contact details of the person or organisation responsible for the resource.