User Version Research Articles

Assessment of primary care in health surveys: a population perspective

The objective of this study was to evaluate the metric properties of a selection of items of the Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCAT) included into 2006 Catalonia Health Survey and adapted to evaluate experiences of primary care (PC) under population perspective. This was a cross-sectional study. The study population was composed of non-institutionalized residents of Catalonia over 15 years of age (n = 12,933). The instrument used was a 10-item selection of the adult user's version of the PCAT (PCAT10-AE). We assessed internal consistency, correlation between items and performed exploratory factor analysis and external validity analysis. The instrument presented adequate internal consistency (0.72). All items showed acceptable correlation with other items that constitute the scale. The single extracted factor explained 64% of the common variance in the responses, allowing the construction of a global index for evaluation of PC. We observed an association between better evaluation of PC and more satisfaction with the health system. Metric analysis supported the integrity and general adequacy of this very short tool included in a population health survey. The global index proposed could be a good measure for assessing and monitoring the adequacy of part of the PC experiences in first-contact care and person-focused care over time, under population perspective. On the other hand, the loss of content as a consequence of the selection of items, suggesting use of the expanded versions of the PCAT-AE whenever a global evaluation of PC is desired and it is possible.

Outsourcing Primary Journal Hosting

ABSTRACT For a primary journal publisher, no matter how small or large, the decision about how to host your online publications is a crucial one. Increasingly, the online version of a journal is the user's version of preference, and today's readers and authors have high expectations in terms of functionality and accessibility. Some publishers choose to build a bespoke, publisher-specific hosting platform in-house, while others choose to outsource their journal hosting to a third party, and concentrate their efforts on the editorial development of their titles. This paper is written from the standpoint of a publisher which has taken the latter option, and describes some of the key issues which will influence the publisher's choice of hosting partner.

Web annotator

The World Wide Web is increasingly becoming an integrated extension of users' computing environments, with content indexed and retrieved through Web browsers. Web browsers are increasingly being used as computer science curriculum delivery mechanism, for both books delivered as local content on CD ROMs as well as server-based material.Traditional computer science curriculum has often been presented through static printed media. What has been printed ahead of time in books or handouts can not be changed. Any changes would have to be attached externally by way of scribbled notes or explanations on the board. The Web gives us the technological affordances to change that, both for students and teachers.The original page remains unchanged, however the user's version of the page is filtered, adding, subtracting and changing web page elements, giving an enhanced view. A demonstration version of the Web Annotator can be downloaded from: http://logos.cs.uic.edu/Annotator.