| HOME | SITE MAP | START PAGE | ABOUT | DISCLAIMER | ||
| PRIVACY | CONTENTS | LINKS | COPYRIGHT | |||
|
||||||
|
Webwords Index Webwords 3 INSTITUTIONS, ASSOCIATIONS, CONSUMERS and the Net The ACQ Internet Column October 1999 Caroline Bowen |
||||||
|
Institutions |
||||||
 |
Institutions sometimes acquire venerability with time. They are gradually invested with special meaning as they prove their staying power and become traditions. The British Medical Association and its journal, like the weekly international science journal Nature have become honoured, sometimes controversial, institutions. | |||||
| Associations For their members at least, professional associations acquire institutional status through their standards, procedures, traditions and public profile. In recent times new dimensions have been added to the notion of 'public profile' with the opportunity for professionals to be represented by a 'web presence'. Most Australian medical and paramedical bodies have national web sites that tell people, including consumers of their services, what they are about. |
Australian Dental
Association http://www.ada.org.au/ Australian Medical Association http://www.ama.com.au/ Australian Nursing Federation http://www.anf.org.au/ Australian Psychological Society http://www.psychsociety.com.au/ Australian Physiotherapy Association http://www.physiotherapy.asn.au/ Australian Association of Social Workers http://www.aasw.asn.au/ Dieticians' Association of Australia http://www.daa.asn.au/ Optometrists' Association Australia http://www.optometrists.asn.au/ Pharmacy Guild of Australia http://www.guild.org.au/ Speech Pathology Australia http://www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au |
|||||
|
Professional association websites have two main groups of consumers: association members, including students, and consumers of the members' services. In the case of speech-language pathologists the consumers are clients and those close to them. |
||||||
| Consumers
and
the Net Countless speech pathology consumers are skilled in the art of seeking out information for themselves. They often use general search engines: AltaVista , WebCrawler and Lycos , for example, or directories like Yahoo and AOL. Other consumers turn first to specialist search sites like ERIC. ERIC is an acronym for The Educational Resources Information Center. It is a US federally funded national information system providing a broad range of education-related services. It is linked to the National Library of Education and US Department of Education. Such searches can lead to interesting sites like a list of psychology related electronic journals and conference proceedings or PubMed. The net provides a range of options that can be utilised with the aid of search tools. Consumers can use the medium's interactive elements to navigate their own course, through available content and resources, to locate what best satisfies their needs and interests. The people behind the ASHA and CASLPA sites provide copious leads to other sites. What does the Speech Pathology Australia web site have to offer its consumers? Well, for professional visitors there is helpful information about the assessment of speech pathology qualifications obtained outside Australia, our annual conference, educational institutions (with eight external hyperlinks to the relevant university departments), a page with five more external hyperlinks, this time to Asha, CASLPA, NZSTA, RCSLT and GASP, membership application forms, an on-line national employment register, private practitioner association details, a state by state professional development calendar, and details of the association's publications. And for consumers there are fact sheets (written in non-technical language) for the general public, and for members to use as handouts and for media releases. Topics include: 'What is a speech pathologist?', 'Who has a communication disability?', 'What is a communication disability?', 'What's it like to have a communication disability?' and 'The costs of a communication disability'. There are also documents relating to speech, language and literacy development, and 'Communication problems following a stroke'. |
||||||
|
Institutionalised member apathy and inactivity is characteristic of organizations in general, from school parent and citizen bodies, to sporting clubs to political parties. How often do we hear that the burden of work in such-and-such-an-association is carried by the unthanked but hard-working few? Speech Pathology Australia thrives because we have relatively few difficulties in that area. From where I sit I see many talented, willing and energetic participants making the association 'work' for us all. Pam Snow, is one case in point, with three terrific issues of the reinvigorated ACQ to her (and our) credit, as she doffs the green eyeshade. Due to Pam's and the ACQ committee's efforts the new editor Dr Sharynne McLeod will find the ACQ in tip-top shape! We are indeed fortunate to have active branch and task group involvement in the newly convened Web Site Review Team that monitors our web site and gives comments and recommendations to the Association on a quarterly basis. Feedback from members about any Association service or product, including the web site can be emailed to National Office. |
||||||
| Page updated 05 Feb 2010
|
||||||
| http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/webwords3.htm |
||||||
| COPYRIGHT © Caroline Bowen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | CONTACT | email | Privacy | ||||||