It’s important to ask questions of any website that you plan to use in your research. Remember, only you can decide if the website is trustworthy, credible and authoratative. Some questions which may be of help towards this, include:
Who is the author /publisher of the page? Can the author's or creator’s credentials be verified? Is the author’s information listed?
Is the information current? When was it last updated? Are the sources documented? Are you getting balanced information? Are there links to additional, reliable resources for the topic ?
Is the organisation’s site suitable/qualified to address the particular subject? Does the organisation’s site promote a specific agenda? Does this Web site belong to someone’s personal account in stead of an organisation?
If statistics are given, are the source of the statistics given?
The University of Iowa's Hardin Medical Library Metadata Directory. Lists free medical images of diseases, conditions & medical diagrams. Copyright restrictions apply.
Includes images, videoclips, presentations and audio files that support health care education. Free registration is needed to search the database. Copyright restrictions apply
Image topics range from human anatomy to clinical disease states to new therapeutic technology; By world renowned medical illustrator, Frank H. Netter, and physician-artists, John Craig and Carlos Machado . Copyright restrictions apply.
Encyclopedia from the National Library of Medicine(US) which includes an extensive library of medical photographs and illustrations searchable by topic. Copyright restrictions apply.
Collection produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consists of materials for teaching, presentation, and public health interest. Organised into categories by people, place, and science. Copyright restrictions apply.
From the National Library of Medicine. Contains complete, anatomically detailed, three-dimensional representations of the normal male and female human bodies. Copyright restrictions apply.
Organisations, Associations & Government - South Africa
SAMA is a professional association for public and private sector medical practitioners and acts as a trade union for its public sector members and as a champion for doctors and patients.
Available from StatsSA (http://beta2.statssa.gov.za/).
At the bottom of the page there is a menu called “tools”, and the option “Nesstar” takes you to a data repository where you can download data from several surveys, incl. the General Household Survey. There is a 10% sample of the 2011 census. StatsSA will make the full dataset for the census available at a cost of R300, but the file is enormous.
The right to share this statistical guide has been optained from Lynda Kellam. The guide was developed by her and Katharin Peter as a pre-conference on reference support for data and statistics at ACRL.
Health, Education, Demographics, GPD, telecommunications: Includes statistics on Western Cape Households, Cape Town, Johannesburg & other regions, such as Northern Cape.
Citation: Shisana O, Labadarios D, Rehle T, Simbayi L, Zuma K, Dhansay A, Reddy P, Parker W, Hoosain E, Naidoo P, Hongoro C, Mchiza Z, Steyn NP, Dwane N, Makoae M, Maluleke T, Ramlagan S, Zungu N, Evans MG, Jacobs L, Faber M, & the SANHANES-1 Team (2014) South African National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (SANHANES-1): 2014 Edition. Cape Town: HSRC Press
One of the world's most voluminous search engines, especially for academic open access web resources. Searches the deep web. Browse by Dewey Classification and document type.
Open Data - portal for AfricaFind data by topics -The African Development Bank (AfDB) has completed the network of Open Data Platforms in all 54 African countries.
The Open Data Platform is part of the AfDB’s “Africa Information Highway” initiative aimed at improving data collection, management, and dissemination in Africa. It will allow open access to the data needed for managing and monitoring development results in African countries, including tracking progress on the MDGs. The Open Data Platform is a direct response to a number of important global and regional initiatives to scale up the availability of quality data on Africa and so foster evidence-based decision-making, public accountability, and good governance.
“Go beyond the usual sources. Discover new avenues of research and gain deeper understanding of your topics with original materials including artworks, photographs, publications, recordings, and other artifacts.”
Open Access repositories /Free Medical Databases and journals
BestBETSProvides rapid evidence-based answers to real-life clinical questions in emergency medicine, using a systematic approach to reviewing the literature. Developed in the Emergency Department of Manchester Royal Infirmary, UK.
BlitterBlitter is an experimental search engine which offers a new insight into searching for clinical information in the context of social media. This innovative approach to clinical search within a social context has been designed and implemented by Jon Brassey and the TRIP database team
The Cochrane LibraryThe South Africa Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and Wiley announced in June 2017 that a National Provision for the Cochrane Library for South Africa has been agreed to. The deal came into effect on 01 June 2017 and allow all South Africans access to this invaluable, evidence-based resource. The first year of the agreement runs from June 2017 to May 2018 and will be renewed for a further two years, conditional upon Governmental funds being available. Going forward, the cost of Years Two and Three will be born wholly by the SAMRC. This opportunity assist healthcare providers nationwide get free access to much needed information.
EuropePubmedCentalFree access to biomedical literature resources. How does Europe PubMed Central (Europe PMC) differ from PubMed and PubMed Central?Europe PMC was developed in collaboration with the founders of PubMed and PubMed Central , the National Center for Biotechnology Information which is based in the United States. The principles of these services are similar - to provide free access to published peer-reviewed biomedical and health research abstracts and full-text articles (PubMed and PubMed Central respectively) - but there are some distinct differences too.
Unlike PubMed Central, Europe PMC provides a single point of access to not only full-text articles but additionally the abstracts available through PubMed.
“Go beyond the usual sources. Discover new avenues of research and gain deeper understanding of your topics with original materials including artworks, photographs, publications, recordings, and other artifacts.”