BackgroundThere is a large body of research suggesting that medical professionals have unmet information needs during their daily routines.ObjectiveTo investigate which online resources and tools different groups of European physicians use to gather medical information and to identify barriers that prevent the successful retrieval of medical information from the Internet.MethodsA detailed Web-based questionnaire was sent out to approximately 15,000 physicians across Europe and disseminated through partner websites. 500 European physicians of different levels of academic qualification and medical specialization were included in the analysis. Self-reported frequency of use of different types of online resources, perceived importance of search tools, and perceived search barriers were measured. Comparisons were made across different levels of qualification (qualified physicians vs physicians in training, medical specialists without professorships vs medical professors) and specialization (general practitioners vs specialists).ResultsMost participants were Internet-savvy, came from Austria (43%, 190/440) and Switzerland (31%, 137/440), were above 50 years old (56%, 239/430), stated high levels of medical work experience, had regular patient contact and were employed in nonacademic health care settings (41%, 177/432). All groups reported frequent use of general search engines and cited “restricted accessibility to good quality information” as a dominant barrier to finding medical information on the Internet. Physicians in training reported the most frequent use of Wikipedia (56%, 31/55). Specialists were more likely than general practitioners to use medical research databases (68%, 185/274 vs 27%, 24/88; χ2 2=44.905, P<.001). General practitioners were more likely than specialists to report “lack of time” as a barrier towards finding information on the Internet (59%, 50/85 vs 43%, 111/260; χ2 1=7.231, P=.007) and to restrict their search by language (48%, 43/89 vs 35%, 97/278; χ2 1=5.148, P=.023). They frequently consult general health websites (36%, 31/87 vs 19%, 51/269; χ2 2=12.813, P=.002) and online physician network communities (17%, 15/86, χ2 2=9.841 vs 6%, 17/270, P<.001).ConclusionsThe reported inaccessibility of relevant, trustworthy resources on the Internet and frequent reliance on general search engines and social media among physicians require further attention. Possible solutions may be increased governmental support for the development and popularization of user-tailored medical search tools and open access to high-quality content for physicians. The potential role of collaborative tools in providing the psychological support and affirmation normally given by medical colleagues needs further consideration. Tools that speed up quality evaluation and aid selection of relevant search results need to be identified. In order to develop an adequate search tool, a differentiated approach considering the differing needs of physician subgroups may be beneficial.

Abstract-Data warehouse (DW) systems integrate data from heterogeneous sources and are used by decision makers to analyze the status and the development of an organization. Traditionally, requirement analysis approaches for DWs have focused purely on information needs of decision makers, without considering other kinds of requirements such as security or performance. But modeling these issues in the early stages of the development is a cornerstone for building a DW that satisfies user expectations. In this paper, we define the two kinds of requirements for data warehousing as information and quality-of-service requirements and combine them in a comprehensive approach based on MDA (Model Driven Architecture). This allows a separation of concerns to model requirements without losing the connection between information and quality-of-service, also in the following conceptual or logical design stages. Finally, in this paper, we introduce a security requirement model for data warehousing, and a three-step process for modeling security requirements, thus illustrating the applicability of our approach with an example.

Abstract. Data Warehouse (DWH) systems represent a single source of information for analyzing the status, the development and the results of an organization. Today's DWH systems provide many different services to different kinds of users. People involved in designing and managing DWH systems need to see the big picture of how the DWH is being used, to have an overview of the current situation, and to be able to visualize future scenarios. Currently, there is a lack of such general models in Data Warehousing. We introduce the UML Profile for Modeling DWH Usage for modeling the different kinds of DWH usage on a conceptual level. It uses features of UML intended for the purpose of creating abstract, general models. The profile distinguishes four perspectives of usage, and allows to model details of the users. The UML Profile is applied to examples illustrating some of the application scenarios.

Abstract. The UML 2 Activity Diagram is designed for modelling business processes, but does not yet include any concepts for modelling process goals and their measures. We extend the UML 2 Activity Diagram with process goals and performance measures to make them conceptually visible. Additionally, we provide a mapping to BPEL to make the measures available for execution and monitoring. This profile and its mapping are tested with an example business process.

Abstract