Information Portals for the Social Sciences - Integration vs. Aggregation
Maximilian Stempfhuber
GESIS / Social Science Information Centre (IZ), Bonn, Germany
Information portals currently follow the principle of aggregation - connecting previously unconnected collections of information to give users a single place of access to this information. The paper argues that aggregation alone will not guaranty the level of quality of service which scientific users demand. Starting with findings from recent user surveys, essential features of information portals are presented and the problems and shortcomings of current solutions are discussed. The second part of the paper presents a model for scientific information portals which focuses on integration, which means that information is not only collected but semantic differences between individual offerings are treated in a coordinated way. As an example for transferring the model to real world information portals, the new social science portal SOWIPORT is used.
