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Netcheck

By Clare Forrest (October 2004 Issue)
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According to their own blurb, www.About.com is used by one out of every five people on the Internet. I suspect that most of us have found ourselves here at some point, probably when researching a particular topic. But most of us (including me) probably haven’t lingered there long once we’ve read the article we came in search of, mainly because it all looks too complicated. So, on this occasion, I set out to answer the following question: ‘What is About.com and how can I use it?’ By the way, I’m indebted to Brian Osbiston who reminded me of the website just when I was trying to work out what to write about this month. Many thanks Brian, you saved me a lot of thinking time.

About.com calls itself, rather grandiosely, The Human Internet. There is, however, rather a nice intention behind the title in that its premise is that people with a particular passion, interest, hobby or profession are the best guides to the Internet. What this means in practice is that when you read one of the articles on About.com you are tapping into a network of over 50,000 topics managed by 475 guides. About.com describes these guides as: ‘Smart, passionate, accomplished people who are experts in their field. Our Guides have written books, appeared on national television and won many awards in their field. For instance, our Headaches Guide was recently recognized as a top patient advocate by the National Headache Foundation. Our Table Tennis Guide is a two-time Olympian and our Paediatrics Guide is a board certified Paediatrician and Fellow of the American Academy of Paediatrics. About Guides live and work in over 20 countries and celebrate their interests in hundreds of topics. Guides are selected for their ability to provide the most interesting information for users and for their passion for their subject and the Net.’

Don’t you just love the idea of a headache guide? If you have a passion for something and are intrigued by the idea of becoming a guide then have a look at http://beaguide.about.com/topics.htm for a list of available topics – that is, those for which there is, as yet, no About.com guide. At the time of writing (August) there was a huge list including: asthma, cold/flu, crime/punishment, dating, dentistry, distance learning, financial software (Quicken, MS Money, etc), hair loss, magic and illusion, and taxes. This gives you a good feel for the eclectic, if not occasionally bizarre, world of About.com. At its simplest it is a series of independent websites, each run by one guide, under the aegis of About.com. This means that each website looks and feels the same as its neighbours, and About.com users can be assured that there is a degree of quality control over the information and those who post it up, which is more than can be said for many so-called expert websites on the Internet.

You can start to navigate the website by clicking on the channel guide on the left of the screen. Or, if you can’t find a channel that seems right for the topic you’re looking for, click on the alphabet that is right beneath the channel guide and this takes you to a full list of subjects. Alternatively, just type your topic into the search engine located in the logo area at the top.

The area that is probably of most interest to trainers is in the Industry and Business channel. Click here and the menu is divided into two areas, Business and Industry respectively. Each of these is further subdivided into discrete areas such as Human Resources and Management. It’s the area in the Human Resources section dedicated to Training and Education (under Articles & Resources) that is well worth spending some time getting familiar with.

Before you go any further though, have a look at the top of any page. There you will see a page-path bar that expands as you click and that shows each page as you visit it, with clickable back links so that you can see where you are on the website and then you can easily return to a previous page. Even better, as you scroll down a page, the page-path bar comes with you so you don’t have to return to the top of the page to find it again. It’s a small but clever idea and it makes this website incredibly easy to navigate. On most large websites it’s easy to get lost, but not on About.com.

Another nice idea is that you can turn off the top frame. This simply holds the About.com logo bar, but takes up quite a lot of the screen, so turning it off gives you more text space and, therefore, requires less scrolling.

Every topic home page you look at has much the same feel. On the left-hand side bar articles and resources are divided into topics. The side bar also allows you to sign up for a newsletter or go to your topic-related forum. I had a look at the human resources forum and it seemed both well used and current, which is unusual for most forums these days.

In the centre of a topic home page is an introduction to your subject guide and this is useful for checking out their credentials. Next there are a couple of examples of new material on the website and this is followed by the sponsored links (product and/or service placements from relevant companies) and then yet more articles of interest. One feature I liked is that there is a real attempt to ensure that what’s advertised links directly to page content. So, for example, if you’re reading a teambuilding article then the adverts are for companies that put on teambuilding events or provide teambuilding materials. In addition, the adverts are simply links to each advertising company’s website, so there are no irritating pop-ups and you have the choice about which links you want to look at. It’s all about making the content user-driven rather than owner-driven.

On the right-hand side of each page is another side bar. This enables you to click directly on articles that have been popular with the website’s visitors recently. The range is huge. Just as a taster, I saw articles on ‘Resources for Effective Performance Management’, ‘Tips for Team Building’, ‘Group Meeting Management’ and ‘Receiving Feedback with Grace’.

It’s fair to say that the quality of the articles can vary. Some are absolutely excellent in terms of content, level of detail and innovation. Others can be quite short and leave you wanting more, but this is compensated for by there always being additional links to more material. Provided you’re prepared to click – and remember it’s hard to get lost – then you can quickly build up a wealth of information on a topic of interest. This means that, for me, About.com is nearly as useful as Google. It’s an excellent starting point for research on virtually any topic you can name – from buying a second-hand car to motivating your workforce. Why not add it to your links toolbar too?

Our sincere thanks to Clare for this month’s ‘Netcheck’. Garry Platt will be back in the November issue of Training Journal.

Ratings
www.About.com
Content ****
Originality *****
Navigability *****
Presentation and graphics ***
Downloads and freebies **
Links *****

Quick hits
www.resultsthroughtraining.com/Pages/download.html
****
We all like free resources and this page has lots, from an ‘Instructor Notes Template’ to exercises on giving feedback. There’s also a couple of consulting tools. All documents can be downloaded as most are either Acrobat (.pdf) or Word files. The documents may be reproduced for personal use and, if you share them with others, then you’re simply asked to reference the source. A lot of care has gone into this page and it is well worth a visit.

www.employee-evaluation-bullets.com/
no stars
It’s hard to know what to say about this product. So, instead, here are the website’s own words: ‘The hardest part of writing performance reviews is filling in the comments. YOU HAVE TO PUT SOMETHING IN THERE!!! That is exactly what this product is meant to do. Employee Evaluation Bullets was created with the manager in mind. It was built to address the particular problem of having something creative, insightful and relevant to add to your workers evaluation. The more bullet comments you insert the more it justifies the rating the employee is getting. It also makes it appear that you put forth considerable effort and that you take the evaluation process seriously. Your employee will feel that you do care and their year of hard work was not forgotten or unnoticed.’ You make up your own mind about the ethics of this one. I know what I think and it isn’t publishable!


Clare Forrest would be pleased to know by snail-mail, e-mail or carrier pigeon the URLs (web addresses) of any websites that you have enjoyed, loathed or found just plain indispensable so that she can bring them to everyone’s attention. She can be contacted at clareforrest@structuredlearning.com or visit www.structuredlearning.com

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