Introduction The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), North American Skull Base Society (NASBS), American Rhinologic Society (ARS), and American Neurotology Society (ANS) fellowship directories are important information repositories for skull base surgical fellowship programs. However, there is limited research on the amount and depth of information available through these resources. The objective of the present study is to assess Web site accessibility and information availability for individual fellowship programs listed within the AANS, NASBS, ARS, and ANS fellowship directories.

Methods Lists of all accredited skull base surgical programs were obtained from the AANS and NASBS fellowship directories. Duplications in listed programs were removed, and systematic queries via an online search engine were conducted to identify fellowship Web sites. From each available Web site, information pertaining to 24 different variables was collected and organized into two categories—recruitment and education. Differences in the availability of information on recruitment and education were then compared across Web sites and contextualized relative to other surgical specialties.

Results After excluding duplicates, 113 fellowship programs were identified, of which 99 (87.6%) had accessible Web sites. Of the 48 listed by the NASBS, direct Web site links were available for 33 (68.8%), email contacts were accessible for 32 (66.7%), and phone numbers were listed for 6 (12.5%). Of the 39 programs listed by the AANS, none included Web site links, 38 (97.4%) provided an email contact, and 39 (100%) listed a departmental contact telephone number. All 28 (100%) programs listed by the ANS provided a phone and email contact in addition to a Web site link to each institutional Web site. Of the 33 programs listed by the ARS, 29 (88%) had a departmental contact telephone number, 31 (94%) had an email contact available, and 4 (12%) had a program Web site link directly available from the database Web site. Of the 99 total programs, fellowship Web sites displayed an average of 5.46 (42.0%) of the 13 recruitment features and 4.80 (42.6%) of the 11 education features. Programs in the geographic Northeast were significantly less likely to present information pertaining to recruitment (p = 0.023). Furthermore, programs in geographic Northeast and West were significantly less likely to present information focused on surgical training and/or education (p = 0.006).

Conclusion Although many skull base fellowship programs have maintained comprehensive program Web sites, certain critical aspects remain deficient, and some programs provide little to no information. Providing more detailed information about programs can prove mutually beneficial for fellowship program directors and candidates.

简介 美国神经外科医生协会 (AANS)、北美颅底协会 (NASBS)、美国鼻科学会 (ARS) 和美国神经学协会 (ANS) 奖学金名录是颅底外科奖学金项目的重要信息存储库。然而，对通过这些资源提供的信息的数量和深度的研究有限。本研究的目的是评估 AANS、NASBS、ARS 和 ANS 奖学金目录中列出的各个奖学金计划的网站可访问性和信息可用性。

方法 所有认可的颅底手术项目的列表均从 AANS 和 NASBS 奖学金目录中获得。删除了列出的项目中的重复项，并通过在线搜索引擎进行系统查询来识别奖学金网站。从每个可用的网站上，收集了与 24 个不同变量相关的信息，并将其分为两类：招聘和教育。然后比较各个网站上招聘和教育信息可用性的差异，并与其他外科专业相关。

结果 排除重复项后，确定了 113 个奖学金计划，其中 99 个 (87.6%) 有可访问的网站。在 NASBS 列出的 48 家公司中，有 33 家（68.8%）提供了直接网站链接，32 家（66.7%）提供了电子邮件联系方式，6 家（12.5%）列出了电话号码。在 AANS 列出的 39 个计划中，没有一个包含网站链接，38 个（97.4%）提供了电子邮件联系方式，39 个（100%）列出了部门联系电话号码。ANS 列出的所有 28 个项目 (100%) 除了每个机构网站的网站链接之外还提供了电话和电子邮件联系方式。在 ARS 列出的 33 个计划中，29 个 (88%) 有部门联系电话号码，31 个 (94%) 有电子邮件联系方式，4 个 (12%) 有可直接从数据库 Web 获取的计划网站链接地点。在 99 个项目中，奖学金网站平均显示 13 个招聘功能中的 5.46 个（42.0%），以及 11 个教育功能中的 4.80 个（42.6%）。东北地区的项目提供与招聘相关的信息的可能性明显较小 ( p  = 0.023)。此外，东北部和西部地区的项目不太可能提供侧重于外科培训和/或教育的信息（p  = 0.006）。

结论 尽管许多颅底奖学金计划都维护着综合性的计划网站，但某些关键方面仍然存在缺陷，有些计划提供的信息很少甚至根本没有。提供有关项目的更详细信息可以证明对奖学金项目主管和候选人来说是互惠互利的。