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Comparative analysis of pediatric mailing lists on the Internet
A A Hernández-Borges1, L G Pareras, A Jiménez
1Departments of Pediatrics, University Hospital of Canary Islands, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. borges@redkbs.com
Pediatrics
|August 1, 1997
Summary
Pediatric online discussion groups offer valuable, albeit nonacademic, forums for knowledge sharing. While they complement medical journals, academic sources still provide higher quality content.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric medicine
- Medical informatics
- Online communities
Background:
- The internet has fostered new platforms for professional discourse.
- Pediatricians utilize online discussion groups for knowledge exchange.
- Assessing the quality of these nonacademic forums is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantitatively analyze pediatric online discussion groups.
- To compare the quality of these groups with pediatric journals.
- To evaluate the academic standing of participants and content.
Main Methods:
- Compiled and selected 12 pediatric specialty mailing lists.
- Analyzed 6 representative pediatric journals.
- Assessed subscriber quality and posting content using Medline and Science Citation Index data.
- Calculated author and journal impact factors.
Main Results:
- NICU-NET and PICU were the most popular and active lists.
- PEDPATH and PEDIHEART had the highest percentage of published authors with high impact factors.
- CHILD-NEURO and PEDPATH showed the highest impact factors per posting.
- Journals consistently had higher average impact factors than discussion groups.
Conclusions:
- Internet-based pediatric discussion groups are emerging nonacademic knowledge-sharing forums.
- These online communities complement, but do not replace, traditional academic sources like medical journals.