Designing a Digital Library of Health Information Literacy Resources and Services to Serve Semi and Non Literate Populations: 

In this project we will develop methods to find and monitor resources and services on the WWW devoted to health information literacy.  The kinds of resources and services of interest are those devoted to serving the health information needs of the many non-literate and semi-literate populations. The initial phase of the project will be on specification of goals and on the design of resource and service finding strategies.  This will be followed by the design of special purpose web crawlers to expand the coverage of the library with additional focused materials.  The resources discovered will be tagged with appropriate metadata and added to a searchable digital collection.

Examples of key activities:  Designing search strategies; designing and applying metadata; deploying web crawlers; indexing the collection using Lucene; implementing a web interface to search the collection.

At least an initial digital collection of resources tagged with appropriate metadata.  The collection will be searchable through a web interface.

--Project Description provided by Professor Srinivasan.

This semester I am still working on the Health Info project with Professor Srinivasan, but under a new project description (above).  This semester the focus will be on adding to the resources provided in the Hesperian books, both by providing a greater context for various health issues already represented in the books as well as expanding the topical coverage. 

Goals/Schedule for the semester:

1. January/February:

• Complete the base prototype:

• Finish adding metadata to images
• discuss any new metadata that should be added (and add it)
• chunk the XML into sections sized pieces and add pointers to previous/next sections so that the prototype can be retrieved by Lucene in smaller bits

• Begin exploring standards for extending the digital library of health information:
• Open Content standards
• Explore how web crawlers will identify open content/multilingual health info/semi literate info
  
• Think about possible sources of high quality, easy to understand consumer health info on the web
• Consider how web resources will be integrated with existing prototype.
• Outreach/Research
• Apply for grant to do exploratory research abroad to gain input from intended audience
• Write paper for DOCAM conference (due March 1)
  

2. March

• Begin development/modification of web crawler to find multilingual health information for semi-literate populations on the web
• Complete human-read audio recording of two to three chapters of book
  
• Begin thinking about the metadata standards that will be used to catalogue found resources.
• Draft a letter that can be used to request permission for use of resources in the digital library (use of multimedia, storage of resource on local server)

• Prepare outreach and research activities
• Prepare presentation for DOCAM conference (presenting March 28)
  
• Continue developing research plans for possible pilot study abroad
• Apply for IRB approval of research and initiate contact with Mexican institutions
  

3. April/May

• Begin cataloguing/indexing and integrating found resources with existing digital library.
• Develop interface further
• Have a prototype ready for potential use in research study abroad:
• should include two more chapters of Hesperian books and corresponding human-read audio
• should integrate several complementary web resources
• should have a working interface

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Meeting my Project Goals: So now that the semester and winter break are about over I thought I would write a brief wrap-up to summarize what was accomplished and whether or not I met my goals for the semester. 

The goals stated in my project plan for the semester were:

• By mid-October: Create a prototype consisting of two chapters in Spanish and English with audio (I will be working on this).
  
• Create a prototype for the output and distribution procedures (another student, Jared Price, is working on this part).
• By mid-October (and ongoing): Connect with partners who are also interested in working on the project.
• By December: Apply for funding for the project.
• By December: We are thinking about submitting a paper about our experiences for a conference next March.

Overall, I did achieve what I had set out to.  We now have a working prototype of two chapters of the book in XML format (and thanks to Brian Almquist, Bob Arens, and Jared Price we have a search interface and distribution system in the works).  We formed a collaboration with Dr. Yong-Chang Kim of the College of Public Health, and, with prototype in hand, met with the Hesperian Foundation and the Iowa City Free Medical and received letters of support from them.  In January we applied for funding through an NIH grant suggested by Dr. Kim.  Also in January we received word that our paper had been accepted for the Document Academy Conference in Madison, Wisconsin for March 2008.

Nonetheless, the prototype is still a work in progress.  I didn't finish human-read audio for any of the chapters and instead supplemented it with computer-generated audio.  Additionally, I have yet to finish adding metadata to images and audio.  I will continue working on this project next semester and will finish these tasks at some point during the semester.

My major accomplishments for the semester include:

• Learning a complicated XML standard, DocBook and developing a prototype consisiting of ~100 pages of text transformed into XML
  
• Learning about audio and image formats to be combined with digital system
• Working with a programmer to develop a Lucene Index
• Identifying contacts at the College of Public Health and Iowa City Free Medical Clinic 
  
• Working with Professor Srinivasan on the NIH proposal/research grant
• Presenting my work to the Hesperian Foundation
• Getting a paper accepted for presentation at an upcoming conference

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Health Info (for non-literate populations): This semester I will be working with Professor Padmini Srinivasan on a project that will provide a variety of users with health information.  We will be creating what Professor Srinivasan has called "a living document" by making the information in one work customizable for a variety of audiences.  We will use XML markup on health books (made freely available from the Hesperian Foundation) to make this possible.

The final product might include:

•     Text (in a variety of languages) marked-up with DocBook
•     Audio, read by native-speakers
•     Images customized for particular cultures or generalized for all audiences
  
•     Video clips
•     An output method which will allow a user to choose not only the format (paper, audio only, computer...) but also the content (by section, chapter, difficulty level, or topic) which they want to include.

The plan for the first semester of the project includes:

• By mid-October: Create a prototype consisting of two chapters in Spanish and English with audio (I will be working on this).
  
• Create a prototype for the output and distribution procedures (another student, Jared Price, is working on this part).
• By mid-October (and ongoing): Connect with partners who are also interested in working on the project.
• By December: Apply for funding for the project.
• By December: We are thinking about submitting a paper about our experiences for a conference next March.

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