And speaking of Nature Network, I was interested to see this list of ‘social networks’ for scientists at the Science@Cambridge site.
Science Social Networks
[science@cambridge: science portal for Cambridge students | Cambridge University Library]
And the following list of citation tools, including Connotea, the Nature service:
Citation Organiser Tools
[science@cambridge: science portal for Cambridge students | Cambridge University Library]
I was aware of some of these, not all. Clearly, Nature has made a significant investment here and is thinking about how to create community in various ways. It will be interesting to see what a list like this looks like in a couple of years.
Update: Ben Toth added four more services in a comment. Here they are …
doc2doc
doc2doc was set up to improve the working lives of doctors by providing an independent place where doctors can talk freely. doc2doc is maintained by the BMJ Group. The BMJ Group is a trusted global medical publisher providing a wide range of products and services that improve the decisions doctors make every day. [About doc2doc – Doctors Community, Forums and Doctors Networking]
The myExperiment Virtual Research Environment enables you and your colleagues to share digital items associated with your research — in particular it enables you to share and execute scientific workflows. [myExperiment]
BioMedExperts is a new online community that connects biomedical researchers to each other through the display and analysis of the networks of co-authors with whom each investigator works to publish scientific papers. The comprehensive system of pre-populated expert profiles, coupled with the ability to analyze all associated professional connections within the co-author network, allows scientists and researchers across organizations the ability to share data and collaborate in ways never before considered. [BiomedExperts – About]
PH Lab has been developed to allow professionals working in public health to find out about the social networking platforms and other digital tools that support the Department of Health’s Informing Healthier Choices initiative. [PHLab]
Ben asks: “I’m wondering about the implications for librarians if these things take off.”
The emergence of these services is symptomatic of the move from website to workflow as our unit of attention on the web, and of the social nature of intellectual work in this context. We want to get things done, by tying things together ourselves or by having them tied together in prefabricated services. It is interesting to see how many of them strongly feature literature resources. Books and articles are social objects around which networks can be built, and the workflows which manage those networks become important consumers of information services.
