SELECTION CRITERIA FOR WEB 2.0 PLATFORM FOR BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH

CRITERIA CONSIDERATIONS

Hosting Internal /external server

PricingOpen source; commercial licensing; subscription-based; fee-based (“Freemium” options offer basic features for free and more advanced features for a fee.)

Development Preconfigured; customizable; end-user do-it-yourself; no code; coding required

Training/Support No cost customer support; fee-based; community

Storage Quota; restrictions

Security HIPAA compliance; mail encryption; blacklist; host blocking

Interoperability Organizational IT policies/capabilities; existing software

Content Access Authoring/access granularity for internal/external users

Communication MixAnnouncements; blogs; microblogging; wikis; forums; comments; instant messaging; chat; RSS feeds; granular portals

User InterfaceUsability vs. functionality; customization; content organization; WYSIWYG content creation and editing; search; end user-tested intuitiveness

Content Creation Granular, user generated; collaborative editing; method and variety of file-type uploading

Search and Tagging Labeling and retrieval with user-generated ontology/folksonomy; content/attachment search

Linking Hypertext link to redirect to internal content/attachments and outside resources

Notifications RSS feed; email subscription; push vs. pull; frequency

Extras Embedded flash/video; media/image editing; templates; integrated calendar; plug-ins; user/page analytics