Hernández-Borges A A, Pareras L G, Jiménez A
Departments of Pediatrics, University Hospital of Canary Islands, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.
Pediatrics. 1997 Aug;100(2):E8. doi: 10.1542/peds.100.2.e8.
To analyze quantitative aspects and the relative quality of various pediatric discussion groups on the Internet and to contrast them with qualitative aspects of a selected number of pediatric journals.
An extensive number of mailing lists on the Internet of interest to pediatricians was compiled. Twelve of them concerned with pediatric specialties were selected. Six representative journals of pediatric specialties were also analyzed and compared with the corresponding mailing lists. From the list of subscribers we studied the potential quality of each mailing list. The postings sent by each member to the on-line discussions were also analyzed. As an estimate of the standing as author of each list member as well as of each first author of the selected journals, we calculated several indexes of quality using the 1995 Medline database and the impact factors of the biomedical journals reported by the 1994 Science Citation Index.
The most popular lists were NICU-NET and PICU, both having more than 1100 subscribers. PEDPATH and PEDIHEART had the highest percentage of subscribers who were published authors, and their papers also yielded the highest impact factors. The most active lists were NICU-NET and PICU. The most participative ones were CHILD-NEURO and PED-LUNG. CHILD-NEURO had the highest percentage of authors among the participants. PEDPATH and CHILD-NEURO had the authors with the highest impact factors among the people who participated in the discussions. These latter two lists also showed the highest impact factor per posting. Those which had the highest yield (highest activity with highest quality per posting) were CHILD-NEURO and PEDIHEART. The average impact factor per first author of the analyzed journals was always higher than the average impact factor per participant of the lists.
The electronic-mail discussion groups on the Internet are new nonacademic forums in which knowledge and experience in pediatrics can be shared. They cannot replace but they complement other more academic sources such as medical journals.
分析互联网上各类儿科讨论组的量化指标及其相对质量，并将其与部分选定儿科期刊的质量指标进行对比。
编制了大量儿科医生感兴趣的互联网邮件列表。从中选取了12个与儿科专业相关的列表。还对6种儿科专业代表性期刊进行了分析，并与相应的邮件列表作比较。根据订阅者名单，研究了每个邮件列表的潜在质量。同时分析了每个成员在在线讨论中发布的帖子。为评估每个列表成员以及所选期刊各第一作者的地位，我们利用1995年的医学索引数据库和1994年科学引文索引报告的生物医学期刊影响因子计算了多个质量指标。
最受欢迎的列表是新生儿重症监护网络（NICU-NET）和儿科重症监护（PICU），订阅者均超过1100人。儿科病理学（PEDPATH）和儿科心脏病学（PEDIHEART）的订阅者中已发表作者的比例最高，其发表论文的影响因子也最高。最活跃的列表是NICU-NET和PICU。参与度最高的是儿童神经学（CHILD-NEURO）和儿科肺病学（PED-LUNG）。CHILD-NEURO的参与者中作者比例最高。PEDPATH和CHILD-NEURO在参与讨论者中拥有影响因子最高的作者。后两个列表的每个帖子的影响因子也最高。产出率最高（活跃度高且每个帖子质量高）的是CHILD-NEURO和PEDIHEART。所分析期刊各第一作者的平均影响因子始终高于各列表参与者的平均影响因子。
互联网上的电子邮件讨论组是新的非学术性论坛，可在其中分享儿科领域的知识和经验。它们不能取代但可补充诸如医学期刊等其他更具学术性的资源。
