For this post I am going to provide a brief
description of three online communities that are out there for stroke victims.
These are online communities that will help with support of stroke victims and
their families.
The first online community is the Stroke
Foundation New Zealand. It is a web site for individuals who have experienced a
stroke to be able to go to and find out information, such as resources that
could provide them with information about strokes. It also gives you
information on how to contact them for help. The site is quite interactive as
you can look at all the different information and pop up windows that they have
to offer; however there are no interactive activities etc. People can
contribute to the site as they have a ‘Help Us’ section where people can go and
donate, fundraise, or volunteer. As I have already said the web site enables
you to contact the stroke foundation for help, they have an info help line, and
also ways to contact help in your region.
Link to this community: http://www.stroke.org.nz/help-stroke-foundation
The second online community is a Stroke
Care website by St George’s University of London. It is a website that gives
you links to a number of other websites, all based on stroke. Including other
online communities such as the Stroke Association. The site does not have any
interactive activities but it is interactive in the way that you can just click
on a link and it will take you straight to the website. You can contact the
people who run the site by emailing them, but apart from that it is very much a
one-way thing where they contribute but you don’t.
Link to this community: http://www.strokecare.co.uk/resources%20and%20help/links/website-links
The third online community is the National
Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. This site gives you information
first of all of what a stroke is, how common it is etc. It then gives you
information on the effects and stroke can have and the rehabilitation process
that occurs after having a stroke. This online community also gives you links
to other resources that may be useful to you. There is also a lot more added
information on this site, but not all of it is specific to stroke. The purpose
of this site is to provide you with information on the condition of a stroke. As
far as I can tell there is not really any way that you yourself can contribute
to the site, it is more them contributing to the site for your purposes.
Link to this community: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/stroke/stroke.htm
When being a part of an online community
there are always ethical issues to consider and that may arise. Informed
consent and copyright are two of the main ethical issues that come to mind when
I think of online communities. As anyone is able to discuss things via the
Internet and web pages it is important that they have gained informed consent
from the person in which they are sharing information about. With my online
communities I found, not just anyone could post anything on the pages. Each of
the web sites had other ways that you could contact the people running the
website and say what you wanted to say. Also the information that is on the
website has been copyrighted. So that makes it important when using information
that is taken straight from the website that it is properly referenced. This
will hopefully stop most of the copyright ethical issues that may arise.
The benefits of these online communities
include:
·
A lot of knowledge provided
around stroke, what it is, what are the symptoms of stroke etc.
·
Extra links provided that will
give you further information or support the information that site is giving
you.
·
Means to contact the people who
run the site with comments.
·
Also being able to contact the
Stroke Foundation for help.
The limitations of there online communities
include:
·
People who don’t have access to
a computer will not be able to take part in these online communities.
·
People who are not very good
with technology or don’t know how to navigate their way around websites may
struggle to use these online communities.
·
There is a lack of interactive
activities on these websites, a lot of just reading information and
calling/contacting for help if you need to.
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