About the project
The Eurocancercoms partnership is an ambitious 2 year FP7-funded European Commission project to provide proof-of-concept for integrating cancer information using cutting edge technology to provide a unique platform for providing cancer intelligence to the public, patients and cancer healthcare professionals.
The scope of what we call ‘cancer information’ is vast covering everything from patient information to on-line educational tools for clinicians and cutting edge informatic tools for cancer biologists working at the bench. This information is fractured across the virtual world; which means it is less integrated, of lower quality and less accessible to the European community. This project aims to reverse these trends and provide novel ways to turn cancer information into intelligence.
The delivery of Eurocancercoms is through the interconnected triumvirate of User Community-Content-Technical Architecture. Each of the partners has been tasked with working on specific aspects – either to provide analysis of the User Communities and / or Content or the Technical aspects of the new integrating platform.
Although time and funding only allows us to focus on specific areas the project is open source, open access and entirely co-operative. If other partners both within and outside Eurocancercoms wish to develop site specific areas, communities or provide novel content and / or tools they are warmly encouraged to do so.
At the end of the two year project in qtr. 3 or 4 2011 we will have delivered novel analysis and a new technical platform for cancer information in Europe.
What will be the initial focus of the technical web development?
We are building an open source multi-lingual platform which will integrate existing content – Word/PDF documents; multi-media streaming; podcasts, etc. We will build this in five languages to begin with. The two site specific demonstrators will be breast and lung and the site will be further developed to integrate resources specifically dedicated to Patients, Prevention, Policy, Cancer Science, Cancer Management.
This new open source platform will bring in existing content and integrate it in seamless user-friendly manner. The aim is to promote those providers of high quality, trustworthy content that already exist on the internet. We will also develop new tools and ways of visualising and personalising the myriad of information on cancer for the broad community.
What communities will we be focusing on?
Through our partnerships with patient organisations and the various professional representational groups we will focusing on patient information, a range of cancer healthcare professions including paediatric oncology, surgery, medical oncology and others and also cancer policy makers in both the public and private fields. As part of this project we are undertaking a number of key research / survey deliverables to understand better the state of the art for new technologies, the needs of the community and types of content required for a new e-cancer information paradigm. Some examples of the major research pieces being undertaken include:
- Social Media and new e-tools for cancer information
- The Paediatric Oncology community: policy and communication needs
- The Cancer Surgery community: policy and communication needs
- E-Information and the European Patient
- A new paradigm for Cancer Clinical Guidelines
- Role of Journalism & Public Dissemination of cancer
A full listing of ongoing projects will be posted on the Eurocancercoms web-site, www.eurocancercoms.eu, and published as the project evolves. The aim of the project is to engage as wide a community as possible to test out new concepts, content and approaches. We are also very welcoming of groups and / or organisations that wish to help us develop specific types of cancer, languages and / or bring in content please do contact us via email at: info@eurocancercoms.eu.