ConnectedWorks

Enabling academics to simply upload their latest paper, and automatically have it placed in the institutional repository, confirmed in the institutional bibliometrics system, and added to their online profile, and also used to recommend new connections within their scholarly network.

Project Summary

We wish to accelerate the development of the next generation VRE incorporating full scholarly networking and strong connections to critical research infrastructure, including repositories and research management systems.

We will create a “one-click publication sharing” system, where a paper will be uploaded and simultaneously deposited into the institutional repository, text mined for keywords and coauthors to suggest additions to the social graph connections of the author, and also added to the online profile of the author.

We will work with institutional stakeholders to connect this to the REF bibliometrics system in a way which allows academics to check and correct their publication record. The work of this project builds strongly upon existing systems and infrastructure at the University of Cambridge and expertise at CARET. Our Sakai VLE/VRE has grown from the original JISC VRE1 days, and supports learning functionality as well as research; it is used by over 3000 unique people per day in its function as the institutional VLE/VRE.

We have a strong understanding of the issues of social networking in academia from the JISC Institutional Innovation programme's Academic Networking project. The Teaching and Learning Research programme (TLRP) illustrates the benefits of a VRE to researchers, the need for networking to support a research career, and also demonstrates the feasibility of text mining of publications to extract metadata and create a social graph.

CARET lead the VRE work for TLRP and continues to host the VRE, now funded by the British Educational Research Association (BERA), who place a real monetary value on the benefits the VRE brings to its members. The ESRC Early Career Researchers project at CARET is showing the benefits of academic networking to young researchers who are building their profiles and reputations. CARET is also involved in the design of DSpace2.

• Academics get an easy way to keep their online profiles up to date
• Universities can be more confident they are tracking all academic publications
• VREs become more social, more powerful, and more useful to everyone

Project Introductions

A 3 minute outline of the project for the VRERI Kick-off meeting @ ULU London, February 2010, can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otUyLQz-TeA

Project Details

• Host Institution: University of Cambridge, CARET
• VRE3/Strands: Theme-Interoperability
• Duration: 24 months
• Start Date: 1 April 2009
• End Date: 31 March 2011
• Amount Awarded to Project: £xxx,xxx.00

Project Team

• Project manager: Dr. Laura James, laura @ caret.cam.ac.uk, office 01223 765377
• Developer:
• Admin:
• Partners:
• Consultants:

Documentation

• Project plan To be uploaded in Downloads by Project
• Code Repository: Sakai3 nakamura (kernel/backend): http://github.com/ieb/open-experiments/ Sakai3 UI: http://github.com/oszkarnagy/3akai-ux
• Technical Documentation: TBC
• End User Documentation: TBC
• Analytics Engine: TBC
• Project Website: http://www.caret.cam.ac.uk/page/jisc-collectedworks
• XMPP Feed (twitter): n/a
• RSS Feed From Project Blog: http://connectedworks.blogspot.com/
• JISC website: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/vre/insscol.aspx