Introduction
This questionnaire on educational portals and content filtering originated from the European FILTER project, a project looking at filtering-in and filtering-out effects that hinder the access to reliable, accessible and affordable content, see www.filternetwork.org or portals@filternetwork.org. Educational portals can help to reduce complexity and sheltering users from information overload. Educational portals may be seen as instruments of conscious or “planned” filtering or content selection efforts. This may be regarded as something positive, helping end users to a more or less highly structured access to quality assured and relevant content. Every portal, however, may also be regarded as possibly being biased, one-sided, etc. In particular high qualified professionals are sensible to “paternalistic” content where the portal decides “this is good for you”. The selection criteria are therefore important issues for the FILTER project and subsequently the portal target groups, i.e. the users of portals of any age.
Three viewpoints
Universities or schools in general are well established coalitions of stakeholders (students, instructors etc.) with research and pedagogical resources and technological infrastructure. An institutional portal may be successful to the extent that it is integrated in the teaching and learning activity of its host institution and at the same time has an international outreach in its content and perspective. Given the nature of educational institutions, however, the establishment of a successful portal may still be a slow and incremental process due to factors like lack of sufficient funding, insufficient incentive systems, lack of engagement from staff, disagreements on technology, choice of standards etc. This questionnaire will focus on the following three viewpoints:
1) student; when accessing educational portals, students have specific needs and whishes. 2) instructor; the internet has become an indispensable tool for instructors. Even when no organized educational portal is available, instructors develop their own web pages in order simply to better do their job. 3) institution; some requirements of institutions regarding educational portals may conflict with each other, or even with student and instructor requirements. Its educational policies, its institutional identity and its marketing oriented competitive advantages are supposed to be promoted by such a portal.
Questionnaire
Taking into consideration the above discussion you are kindly requested to reply to the following questions:
Name:
Position/Function:
Institution:
Country:
I frequently use the following two educational portals: A B
Currently I am a: student instructor other profession in education, namely (fill in below)
2.1 According to your experience, rate the following instructor requirements from educational portals by writing a unique number in the space provided (10=extremely important to 1=not important at all).
2.2 According to your experience, rate, for each service, the level of filtering as "none", "limited", "moderate" and "high".
3.1 According to your experience, rate the following institutional requirements from educational portals by writing a unique number in the space provided (10=extremely important to 1=not important at all).
3.2 According to your experience, rate, for each service, the level of filtering as "none", "limited", "moderate" and "high".
Please add your final remarks here:
If you wish to stay informed about the outcomes of this portal study, please give your e-mail address below. My e-mail address:……..