G13 International Conference on Grey Literature

Slide 1: Science-Forums.net Communities for Science Colleagues

Tweet Comments or Questions:

@L_Vowell
@LynnJD
#GL13ScienceForums
#GL13conf

Lance Vowell
Program Manager
Contractor to DOE/OSTI
Information International Associates (IIa)

Lynn Davis
Program Liaison, MLS
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI)

 

 

Slide 2: Motivation/Justification

Hypothesis that Web 2.0 technologies can promote:
   • Collaboration
   • Information exchange
   • Global networking among scientists (peer-to-peer)
   • Scientific discovery and innovation

BACKGROUND

 

Slide 3: Motivation/Justification (cont'd)

We believed that scientific researchers would want to collaborate in a different manner than that provided by the typical social network such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Second Life or Twitter

We also wanted the system to support a broad range of both published and grey information types such as technical reports, theses, research notes, research papers in progress

BACKGROUND

Slide 4: Primary Goal

Speed the diffusion of scientific knowledge by enabling improved web 2.0 communications among scientific and research communities.
   • Ease implementation of peer-to-peer communications
   • Enable informal content creation of both comments and discussion
   • Create formal published and grey literature
   • Provide mechanisms to access, import, share, view, and cite other published and grey literature

PHASE I

Slide 5: Other Potential Benefits

• Facilitate retrieval of scientific and technical information by librarians and other information professionals
• Apply concept to traditional government research agencies, universities, pharmaceutical companies, and all organizations involved in scientific research

PHASE I

 

 

Slide 6: User/Subject Matter Expert Input Sought

• Interviewed hand-selected Focus Group
• Identified larger group to provide periodic feedback

PHASE I

Slide 7: Major Focus Areas

During 3 years of research:
   • Determined high-level requirements for system
       • Simplicity and ease of use
       • Information security
   • Conducted survey of commercial off-the-shelf/open source systems
   • Produced prototype for evaluation

PHASE I

 

 

Slide 8: Prototype Development

   • Noted considerable change in landscape of peer-to-peer collaboration between Phase I and Phase II surveys 
   • Determined significant number of shareware or open source products were highly customizable and would meet many of the project requirements out-of-the-box

 

PHASE II

 

Slide 9: Technology

• Platform: Considered Ning, Drupal, Mambo, Joomla!, Taverna and SupportMaster; Drupal was chosen 

PHASE II

 

 

Slide 10: Technology (cont'd.)

• Web-based content management system: Research and development led to building a system to enable self-forming groups, where researchers can create useful web-based communities around scientific topics of interest to those groups :

PHASE II

 

 

Slide 11: Technology (cont'd.)

• Open Access Standards: Chosen to import documents to the Library since a primary function of the system is a repository (library) for scientific research information

 

PHASE II

 

Slide 12: Beta

• "Science-Forums.net": The name given the website and system by the Project Team

 

PHASE II

 

 

Slide 13: Be sure to Tweet Comments or Questions:

 

@L_Vowell
@LynnJD
#GL13ScienceForums
#GL13conf

Slide 14: Science-Forums.net (beta) website

 

 

 

 

 

Slide 15: Science-Forums.net (beta) website

 

 

 

Slide 16: Science-Forums.net (beta) website

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slide 17: Science-Forums.net (beta) website

 

 

 

Slide 18: Science-Forums.net (beta) website

 

 

 

 

 

Slide 19: Science-Forums.net (beta) website

 

 

 

 

Slide 20: Science-Forums.net Communities for Science Colleagues

Tweet Comments or Questions:
@L_Vowell
@LynnJD
#GL13ScienceForums
#GL13conf

Lance Vowell
Program Manager
Contractor to DOE/OSTI
Information International Associates (IIa)
(865) 576-2087
VowellL@osti.gov 

Lynn Davis
Program Liaison, MLS
DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI)
(865) 241-6435
DavisL@osti.gov