About ...

• What does 'Open' mean?
• Maintenance
• Site Principles
• Criteria for Listing
• Advertising here
• Business Extra
• Legal Notices
• A Bit of History
• Submit Your Site Now!
  

What does 'Open' mean?

Well, it does not mean anarchy; and, of course, I shall be making editorial decisions. But the process will be open, the criteria will be 'commonsense' - and I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the sites.

Maintenance

I'm intending to update the site monthly, approximately. I can check all the links in one half hour with Xenu's Link Sleuth, and there's usually some 5-10 sites moved, changed or gone. New sites are added as I update.

Site Principles

This is a professional site, and we have applied for membership of the Health On the Net Foundation, and we fully endorse the HonCode Principles. The site has been granted membership - and we are making our Site Principles visible and unambiguous for visitors.

Criteria for Listing

Broadly, any working, professional site aimed at a clinical nursing audience will be listed. I make no judgements about professional content, but I am familiar with my target audience!

Other sites will be considered, but these will be subject to assessment: despite not being 'for nurses', is there sufficient there to make them a useful resource?

Some sites will probably not be listed. But this is for a variety of common sense reasons; I make no decisions about how useful or 'good' your site is.

• I'll not include corporate sites, not of practical use to my visitors.
• I do not include sites that choose to include music or other heavy downloads
• I do not include sites that choose to include pop-up boxes, which it slow down browsing for many people, and is very annoying.
• No site which appears to be an affiliate of a site which is already listed.
• The site must be working properly. Failure may be a technical fault or (all too often these days) overdesign.
• No sites whose URL forwards to another.
• I do not have the resources to assess non-English sites.
• Business sites should includes contact details, clearly visible or directly linked from the front page: email, post address (box number is not sufficient).and telephone.
• Submissions must include a web site address !!
• Due to our limited resources, I regret we only list national and international resources.
• I do not list sites where essential information is only supplied on registration - I would advise people never to register until they know what they are going to get!
• Sites where the primary aim is scams, schemes, Multi Level Marketing or an excess of affiliations. There's a balance.
• Sites using "comet cursor" or other intrusive software.

Business Extra

Business sites should be user friendly; that includes having contact details clearly visible - or directly linked - from the front page.

Contact details must include email, postal address (not a box number) and telephone contact points.

This applies to all business sites.

If in doubt, please submit your site.

All sites will be categorised, and descriptions checked against the site content; Editor's decision will be final on that. Normally, sites will not be listed more than once.

Sites that cannot be found will be moved to the 404 page, and if still missing on next check (a few weeks), then the link will be deleted.

Sites may be removed, at owners request, following complaints, or for other reasons. These reasons may not be divulged, and are not open for negotiation.

And, like every other web resource - You Take Your Pick!

This is flexible; I'm learning as I go along and I'm willing to change any - or all of the above.

Advertising Policy

Advertisements and affiliate schemes contribute toward the costs of this site. Buttons or Banners may be displayed above a horizontal line at the top of the page, or below a full-width horizontal line at the foot.

All 'exchange', affiliate or paid-for advertisements are labelled "advertisement"

Rules and RateCard

The site is affiliated to Amazon, whose banners and search boxes appear in the BookShop. The affiliation is clearly stated

For the background to this policy, please see "Site Principles"

Andrew Heenan 

PS I'm happy to discuss any of this.

Legal Notices

Privacy Policy: RealNurse will not pass on email addresses or any other information to any third party. While correspondence is kept in secure files, email addresses or any personal information submitted to us is not used in any way. This assurance is in addition to your legal rights.

© 1997-2005 Free To All
Copyright matters: I do not expect payment for use of any of this material (c'mon!), and I am happy to admit that I have shamelessly borrowed from all over the web. But I created this page and worked into the night to edit the material and put it all together, and I assert whatever rights I have.

In other words ... If you do copy any or all of it, please give me due credit, and quote the page address too: http://www.realnurse.net/directory/

Quagga accepts no liability whatsoever in contract, tort or otherwise for any loss or damage caused or arising directly or indirectly in connection with the contents of this website except to the extent that such liability cannot be excepted by law. So there.

A Bit of History

I first started a links page in 1997, when I was very new to the web. I soon realised that many were doing the same thing, and some were doing it much, much better In particular, Rod Ward's "Nursing and Health Care Resources on the Net" convinced me that there was little point in continuing.

Then, a few months ago, Rod became involved in a project which aimed to provide a 'peer reviewed' directory of websites, along the lines of "The Open Directory - Nursing" - but more academic.

That's fine, of course, and there's plenty of room for more structured sites. But my gut feeling, and this was shared by many on the newsgroups, not to mention Rod's thousands of visitors, was that it would be tragic, if not criminal, for such a great resource to die.

I thought about it; I kept an eye on the newsgroups ... nothing was happening. So I determined that if I wanted it done - I'd have to do it. So I did. And while I ruffled some feathers in the way I did it (That's another story), this site continues the great tradition started by Rod: an Open Resource for Nurses, Midwives and associated professionals.

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If you have found this useful, please consider a link from your site