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The dawn of research networking: A proposed research agenda

Titus Schleyer, DMD, PhD1, Brian Butler, PhD2, Mei Song, PhD1, Heiko Spallek, DMD, PhD1
1University 2University

of Pittsburgh of Maryland

Finally, I'm sorry to say that the paper is written in a very bland, boring manner. It is filled with "tion" words and passive voice. Nothing happens in this paper!
Reviewer 1, Schleyer et al.., Conceptualizing and advancing research networking systems. ACM TOCHI, in print
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Why the dawn of research networking?

2006: ~3 of 12 initial CTSA proposals included research networking NCRR et al.: Where is the problem?

$12m VIVO grant award high rate of academic and industry innovation (look around)
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Objective of the paper

review literature of multiple disciplines stimulate foundational research on research networking systems by: proposing claims and corresponding research questions

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Definition
Research Networking Systems (RNS) are systems which support individual researchers efforts to form and maintain optimal collaborative relationships for conducting productive research within a specific context.

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Four key areas for RNS

Foundations Presentation Architecture Evaluation

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Foundations
project-, institution- and discipline-specific motivational factors the role of social networks Impression formation based on information beyond expertise and interest

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Presentation
representing expertise in a comprehensive and up-to-date manner role of controlled vocabularies and folksonomies tension between seekers need and collaborators privacy serendipitous discovery of collaboration opportunities
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Architecture
information aggregation and synthesis from multiple sources research networking system interoperability integration with users workflow

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Evaluation
assessment of collaboration decisions measurement of user-specific costs and benefits large-scale impact of RNS longitudinal and naturalistic evaluation methods

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Claim 2: Exploiting social networks is essential for efficient and effective research networking.

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Social network questions

determining and maintaining information about researchers social and collaborative networks refining implicit relationships, such as coauthorship applying explicit relationship identification in RNSs avoiding colleague inflation

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Claim 5: RNS must represent individuals expertise, interests and activities using controlled terminologies.

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Brother Folksonomy

VS

Mr. Taxonomy

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Controlled terminology questions

representing expertise and interests in domains without widely accepted controlled terminologies role of folksonomies and social tagging in expressing content combining controlled and user-generated terms effect of controlled terminologies on motivation to use RNSs
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Claim 6: RNSs must allow users to search and visualize researcher profiles in multiple ways.

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Picking collaborators from a stack of CVs

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Questions about searching and visualizing profiles

supporting different strategies for locating collaborators basing strategies on information artifacts, general profiles and/or network structures applying filters and faceted searches minimizing user effort through search algorithms

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Copyright 2011 The Trustees of Indiana University

Copyright 2011 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

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Claim 9: RNSs must integrate information from multiple systems, make use of metainformation such as indexing terms to synthesize the information and present results in a cohesive manner.
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Databases

Social Media
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Informal sources
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Information integration and synthesis questions

interfacing with multiple sources and aggregating data synthesizing different information artifacts role of information attributes
currency validity representation scheme level of abstraction audience
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Claim 10: RNS must integrate seamlessly with an individuals workflow and the software applications that are part of it.

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Integrating seamlessly with workflow

leveraging researcher activities continuously to facilitate profile creation and maintenance developing RNS interoperability developing standards for information exchange

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www.direct2experts.org

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Claim 11: Evaluating RNS search results requires metrics which combine traditional information retrieval measures with those specific to collaboration.
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Evaluation of RNS questions

applicability of recall and precision without a gold standard appropriate model(s) of collaboration and information seeking metrics for assessing the outcome of a search for a collaborator
long-term natural experiments multiple measurements impact factor v. nanopublications?
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Conclusion
moving RNSs forward requires broad but integrated research program CSCW, HCI, social science and others essential to progress rapid, iterative cycle between foundational research, design, implementation and evaluation

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Thank You for Your Attention!

Questions, comments?
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Thanks to: NCRR award 1 U54 RR023506-01 Michael Dziabiak

Please visit us at: http://di.dental.pitt.edu/orc Twitter Facebook /titusschleyer Scribd

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http://scr.bi/nRWibs

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