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Updated: Aug 9, 2026
A Web Tool for Generating High Quality Machine-readable Biological Pathways
Published on: February 8, 2017
The Internet for pathologists: a simple schema for evaluating pathology-related Web sites and a catalog of sites
Geoffrey Talmon1, Neil A Abrahams
1Department of Pathology and Microbiology, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha 983135, USA.
Context:
With the increasing popularity of the Internet as a primary medical information source, it is critical for pathologists to be able to use and evaluate both general medical- and pathology-related Web sites. Several published models for evaluating Web sites prove cumbersome to use and often involve computer- or statistic-based algorithms.
Objectives:
To develop a simple group of scoring criteria to objectively evaluate medical Web sites and provide a list of the highest-scoring pathology-related sites that will be useful to the practicing pathologist.
Design:
Using 11 commonly used Internet search engines, the top 50 "hits" retrieved from the search term websites for pathologists were scored using 5 criteria, including accuracy, ease of navigation, relevance, updates, and completeness. A possible 6 to 12 points per area were awarded, and the total score was summated.
Results:
Scores obtained ranged from 12 to 21. Thirty-five Web sites, all scoring 15 or higher based on these criteria, were listed as most useful.
Conclusion:
A simple, easy-to-use, 5-category scoring system can prove useful in evaluating pathology- and medical-related Web sites.
