Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Community Rules and Guidance: The Knowledge Network Online Community Services

The Knowledge Network online community services include personal profiles, tagging, My Resource Space, Community websites and Shared Spaces. These services enable people to share information and learning resources and experience.

We have established these Community Rules and Guidance so that everyone can get the best out of these services. These rules aim to protect all users by making sure they work as safe and helpful knowledge tools for everyone. Users need to register for a username and password and agree to abide by these rules before they can use the online community services.


Contributions

  • Contributions must never include any patient identifiable information (including any combination of data which could identify an individual patient), in order to comply with the NHS Scotland Code of Practice on Confidentiality, the Caldicott Principles and the Data Protection Act 1998
  • No personal data relating to any individual should be included in contributions, except where the individual has consented to their personal data being included, or where the data in question is of a public or readily-available nature (for example, work contact or role details).
  • No defamatory or offensive comments or opinions relating to organisations or individuals should be included in contributions.
  • Content contributors are responsible for ensuring that their contributions are in compliance with the code of ethics of their own professional body.
  • Content contributors are responsible for ensuring that material is uploaded to online communities in accordance with their own organisations' confidentiality, information governance and information security policies.
  • When contributors are not the originators they must have the permission of the originator and give full acknowledgement and attribution, OR; ensure the use falls within the "fair dealing" terms of UK copyright legislation, OR; ensure the originator has made clear that the material may be shared in this manner.
  • Contributors must be in possession of an NHS Scotland Athens username and password
  • Contributions must be in English unless previously agreed with the NES Knowledge Services Group.
  • No impersonation

The NES Knowledge Services Group has full administration rights over all the services in order to ensure that these Rules are consistently applied.  Submissions to online communities will normally be archived.

 Abuse of any of the above rules may result in action being taken against your account.


Copyright

Copyright of material you produce

Copyright of documents and other materials uploaded via the online community services is retained by the original creators. Copyright of discussion forum and email messages, blog posts and wiki entries is also retained by the creators. By the terms of employment contracts, the copyright holder of published material will often be the institution that employs an individual, rather than the individual him/herself.

NHS Education Knowledge Services Group actively encourages content contributors to consider use of Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons is a non-profit corporation that promotes the creative licensing and re-using of intellectual works.  We recommend users to apply the Attribution Non-commercial License to their work. This licence permits users to derive other non-commercial works provided that they  clearly acknowledge the creator of the original work. This means that, for example,  your material may also be freely distributed and copied for purposes of education and supporting delivery of health and social services, provided that appropriate acknowledgement is given to yourself as the copyright holder and original publisher.


Copyright of third party material

Contributors of content to online communities and/or their institutions are responsible for clearing all Intellectual Property Rights and copyright owned by third parties in resources before depositing them in any online community.

In general, subscription ebooks, ejournals and databases of article citations have their own licences, which must be adhered to.  The terms and conditions of these licences are generally available from publisher websites.  In cases of aggregators who provide access to a range of journals from different publishers, you should refer to the policies outlined by each individual publisher.  These may vary, so if you are in doubt it is always preferable to refer to each individual publisher licence.

In the absence of any licence being identified,  it is suggested that you treat any subscription electronic resource as you would a printed item, under the terms and conditions of  the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 (hyperlink to http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/UKpga_19880048_en_1.htm) As a general rule you may print, download, or e-mail single copies of electronic journal articles and database search results for private study and research.  You must not share these downloaded or printed items with unauthorised users.  You must not make multiple copies without checking the terms of the licence. In general we recommend that you direct users to log in to online journal articles and books via the publisher or supplier websites using their NHS Education username and password. 


Freedom of Information

Information and documents within the online communities will be regarded as being held by NHS Education for Scotland for the purposes of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.  FOI requests or related queries should be directed to frank.rankin@nes.scot.nhs.uk.  Wherever possible, NES will consult with relevant Boards and/or individuals in considering material for disclosure.


Breach of Community Rules

Users of online community services may contact NHS Education for Scotland Knowledge Services Group about any breach of the Rules. The Knowledge Services Group will take any of the following actions as appropriate:

  • Contact the individual responsible to discuss the problem 
  • Contact the Shared Space community administrator or Community website administrator 
  • Remove the individual from Community membership and use of networking services
  • Contact their parent organisation
  • Remove inappropriate messages/submissions/tags/wiki entries/blog posts
  • Make a public announcement to those affected
  • Pre-moderate contributions from that individual
     

Prerequisites and criteria for creating online communities

Aim, scope and objectives of the proposed Community must be clearly defined and related to health, healthcare or social care. For example it may be centred around a specific problem, specialism, discipline or project.

  • An Administrator must be identified who is fully aware of his/her roles and responsibilities.
  • The proposed Community will have a readily identifiable and interested target membership.
  • The Administrator must have a clear understanding of the knowledge resources which will support the Community. These may comprise documents, websites, databases, and also best practices and learning experiences within the Community. Evaluation criteria and processes should be explicit.
  • The Administrator accepts that the Knowledge Services Group (KSG) within NHS Education for Scotland will provide the technical infrastructure to support collaboration among Community members. Decisions of the KSG pertaining to this infrastructure or further technical development are final.

 

The Administrator Role

An Administrator is the manager of a Community Website or Shared Space. It is the Administrator's responsibility to:

  • Define aim, objectives and scope, configuring the service so that it reflects the needs of the Community.
  • Define the target audience. 
  • Add and remove members. 
  • Approve or reject new membership applications, stating clearly to prospective members the reasons their applications have been approved/rejected.
  • Support new and inexperienced Community members.
  • Read all postings and submissions to the Community, ensuring compliance with the Community Rules and dealing with any complaints or breaches of these rules.
  • Monitor adherence to information governance standards, in particular the exclusion of all Patient Identifiable Information from contributions, the inclusion of other personal data only with consent or where the data is already public
  • Promote and publicise the Community.
  • Ensure that the Community is active, constantly evolving, and receptive to new ideas. This includes encouraging and sometimes directing relevant discussion. 
  • Report any technical problems to the NHS Education for Scotland, Knowledge Services Group.
  • Liaise with the NHS Education for Scotland Knowledge Services Group as required for the smooth working of the online community services.