17 June 2010

Today started of quite strange as 3 of my group members were sick and had to go to the docter...then I learned that one of my group members has a nasty virus on her flashdrive which deleted all the work she did on tuesday and she had to start over. And to put the sherry on top, when I got home and wanted to upload my work, only halve of it was there and I also had to start over. I still don`t know where my work went...

Anyway, we continued working on the work we started on tuesday, but unfortunately by 16:30 we didn`t finsh uploading all of the work as the Computer labs closed and we had to continue from home.

I spoke to Me. van Heerden early this morning to discuss how our group is doing and she mentioned to me that she likes the social part of our blogs, but that we had to add an academic side to it as well. This is what I worked on today, I really hope I didn`t miss the point, So here goes....

The following is a list of existing Web2.0 tools/technologies specifically designed to address the individual needs of organisations or groups. Although these tools might work for more than one organisation it is not guaranteed and it should not be expected from them.

2Collab is a tool developed by Elsevier and is used as a collaboration platform for science, research and medicine professionals. It allows the sharing of resources, bookmarking, and creation of groups as well as collaboration. (2 collab, 2010).

The AcaWiki website’s main function is to increase scholarly research with the help of Web 2.0. Users of the site can upload summaries, user profiles and discuss academic articles. (AcaWiki, 2010)

Delicious, is designed as a social bookmarking service and is used to organise, describe, save, as well as share Web pages. Using Delicious saves the user time and trouble as his/her bookmarks can be accessed from any computer connected to the internet. (Delicious, 2010)

According to Epernicus (2010), Epernicus is used by research scientists as a professional networking platform. It connects scientist with colleagues and experts in order to use the right method to complete the task at hand at the right time. It can be used to create a link to this expert’s public profile, for easy access.

Facebook is a social network that almost everyone is familiar with these days. They have a motto of: “Giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected”. Users are enabled to join groups/networks, share videos, pictures, music, and chat with one another to name but a few of its features. (Facebook, 2010).

Labmeeting is a web service used for the sharing, organisation and collection of scientific literature. The researchers from educational institutions get free access but other researchers are invited for a trial period. Sharing of the papers can be restricted to personal or group level. (Labmeeting, 2010).

According to Laboratree (2008), Laboratree is both social networking and research management tools. The goal is to be a place where scientists can manage their blogs, share papers, manage projects and meetings, and communicate with colleagues.

Lalisio makes it possible for knowledge professionals, scholars and students to share their knowledge through networks that are globally visible and can be accessed from anywhere. It features a search engine for journals, books and other literature and allows users to create a profile and post information for groups. (Lalisio, 2010).

LinkedIn is used as a tool used to connect with peers and their peers and facilitate the sharing of files, problem solving, job searching and collaboration on various projects. Their mission is: “to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful” (LinkedIn 2008 in O'Dell & Sue 2010, 243).

IBM developed a product named Many Eyes which is used to upload and download data and then discuss it among colleagues. The goal is to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to deliver input in the data visualisation process. (Many eyes, n.d.)

According to MyExperiment (2010), Myexperiment enables community building, allows the finding, sharing, usage of scientific workflows and other research objects. The goal is to minimise time and effort in the creation of new workflows. It can thus be said that it kept the needs of researchers in mind when it was deigned.

Nature Network is a website that was developed by Nature Publishing group to act as a professional networking site for scientists the world over. As with other networking sites it allows the creation of profiles, interests groups as well as discussions. Some upgrades to be made to the website are posting of events or available job positions, a search feature for posts and available jobs and it will also allows for blogging. (Nature Network, 2009).

Ning is a tool that can be used for the creation and maintenance of social networks. Scientists and researchers can use it to create a limited network between them and maintain it with ease. (Ning, 2010)

Researchgate is an online community for researchers and scientists. It enables the users to find new research partners, form new groups and schedule meetings. Research gate has a search feature connected to “PubMed//, Citeseer, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Research Papers in Economics and ArXiV”. It allows for ranking and commenting on these papers as well. (Researchgate, 2010)

Scientists Without Borders states that they as an organisation: “aims to mobilize and coordinate science-based activities that improve quality of life in the developing world” (Scientists without Borders, 2009). They have a database that scientists can be use to share resources and find one another as well as create records that can be used for solving specific problems. (Scientists without Borders, 2009)

SciSpace was developed by The National Institute for Environmental eScience with the aim of helping scientists and collaborators communicate by using wikis, blogs, bookmarking and shared file spaces. It is an open source software and user development is encouraged. (SciSpace, 2010)

In the virtual world named Second Life, users make use of virtual bodies or avatars as referred to, to interact in this virtual world. It has the advantage that it can be used for conference purposes but that also leads to the disadvantage that people need to be logged in to the system at the same time. (Second Life in O'Dell & Sue 2010, 244)

Twine is a type of software that has the purpose of combining, organising and then sharing content on the web. These content include articles, blogs, videos and web sites. The software also has a learning capability which train itself to make better recommendations the more it has been used. (Twine in O'Dell & Sue 2010, 244 )

Twitter, developed by Twitter Inc., is regarded as a “microblogging” service that supports short messages of only 140 characters. Multiple devices can be used to “tweet” progress, status updates, answers and questions that will be delivered to the followers of these instantly. (Twitter, 2010)

According to BioMedExperts (2009), BioMedExperts is a social network, based on scientific literature that enables researchers to work together online. The goal is to increase the amount of collaborative research that take place in the area of biomedicine. (BioMedExperts, 2010)

OpenWetWare is a space created for biology and biological engineering professionals where information, experience and wisdom can be shared. It allows users to participate in world-wide labs and groups; attend classes; share and read blogs from OWW. To read more go to: (OpenWetWare, 2010)

The Nature Publishing Group developed Scitable, a collaborative space for learning in the area of science, genetics to be specific. In this space a virtual classroom can be created to interact with students and colleagues. (Scitable. 2010)

SciFinder Scholar is a service that organisations need to subscribe to. After that they will have worldwide access to Chemical abstracts, which is used in chemical research. It has a feature named “my connections” that creates links to users within the same organisation and allows the sharing of comments and tags. (SciFinder, 2010)

The American Chemical Society created ACS Network to serve as a virtual meeting place. Users of this place can create their own networks and collaborate with ACS members who include researchers, librarians and global partners.
(ACS Network, 2010)

AIP UniPHY is a professional social networking site which is similar to BioMedExperts but the difference being networking between physical science researchers and scientist instead of biology and biomedicine researchers and scientists. The content that can be searched is named: Searchable Physics Information Notices or (SPIN). (AIP UniPhy, 2009)

This is what I have learned today and yesterday. I didn`t know half of these tools and technolgies that are available but after a long day of searching for this information, I realised that there is tools and technolgies available that can help organisations, in this case, the CSIR, to address the issue of embedded librarianship. This can be done by using some of these tools/technolgies individually, but it can also be used combined. That might even produce a very good system that can work for them.