Creating a Scope Policy for your Service

The scope policy of a service states what is and what is not to be included in the catalogue. This is broadly defined at the inception of the service using the information needs of the target audience.

In the selection process, the scope of the service will affect the first decisions made about the quality of the resources. Those falling outside the scope will be rejected, and those falling within it will go on through the rest of quality selection process, and be evaluated in the light of the rest of the quality criteria.

The scope criteria are the first filter through which the resources pass, and so are the most general criteria. They will tend to involve black and white decisions - either a resource falls within the scope or it does not. The most important thing to consider in choosing the scope criteria for a service will be the aims of the service and the target audience.

Some possible criteria to create your scope policy are given below, not all of these will be appropriate for your audience and you may need to add additional criteria.
Information Coverage
Subject Matter
  • What subject matter is appropriate for the target audience?
  • Are there any subjects which will be censored (e.g. for ethical reasons, such as resources produced by hate groups or resources about bomb-making / paedophilia etc.)
  • How important is the subject matter of linked sites?
Acceptable Types of Resource
  • What types of resource are appropriate for the target audience?
  • Is the information scholarly rather than popular?
  • Does the resource contain more than just a list of links?
  • Is the site either proven to be, or expected to be durable?
  • Would a resource intended for use by an individual or local group be acceptable?
  • Is it innovative - does it make breakthrough design elements?
Acceptable Sources
  • Which sources of information are acceptable/appropriate for the target audience?
  • Are academic, government, commercial, trade/industry, non-profit private sources all acceptable?
  • Are pages maintained by individual enthusiasts (e.g. students) acceptable?
  • Is biased information acceptable, and are opinions and ideologies acceptable?
Acceptable Levels of Difficulty
  • What level of resource is appropriate for the target audience? (e.g.users may be school children or may be academics)
Advertising
  • Are resources that contain advertising acceptable?
  • Is there a limit to the amount of advertising that is acceptable?
  • Are there any forms of advertising which will be censored?
Access
Cost
  • How is charging going to affect selection - is the service only going to point to resources that are free to access?
  • Are there any price limits in terms of the access charge?
  • What if resources are under copyright?
Technology
  • What technologies are appropriate for the target audience? (forms, ismaps, databases, cgi scripts, Java applications, frames, etc.)
  • What connectivity does your audience have, and how will this affect selection?
  • What software do your users have and how will this affect selection? (e.g. will resources that work well in graphical-browsers but not in line-browsers be accepted?)
  • What hardware do your users have and how will this affect selection?
Registration
  • Will the service accept resources where user-registration is necessary before the resource can be accessed?
  • Is on-line registration acceptable?
  • If users must negotiate written contracts before access is possible, is this acceptable?
Security
  • When it is necessary for users to send confidential information over the Internet, will the provision of a secure coding system or encryption affect the selection?
Special Needs
  • Do your users have any special needs that will affect the resources selected? e.g large print or audio options for disabled users.
Cataloguing Policy
Granularity
  • At what level will resources be selected/catalogued?
  • Will resources be considered at the Web site/Usenet group level or the Web page/Usenet article level?
Resource description
  • What is the minimum amount of information needed to create a resource description in your catalogue? i.e. what basic information MUST a resource contain to be selected? (e.g. in a WWW document, contact details, last update details etc.)
  • Is there sufficient information to create a descriptive record
  • Will the service accept resources with/without specific metadata?
Geographical Issues
Geographical Restraints
  • Are any geographical restraints appropriate for your audience?
  • Will the service cover information produced locally, from particular countries, particular continents or world wide?
Language
  • Resources in which languages are acceptable/appropriate for your target audience?


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