Science Intelligence and InfoPros

To support the launch of its Mendeley special edition, Swets has just released a subtile and very smart booklet that presents different challenges of the libraries in the digital age. It comes as well to define how social media have taken an important place into the research workflow.

“More and more students and researchers are turning to Mendeley to help facilitate their research. Mendeley’s unique, user-led research environment combines a powerful reference management tool with sophisticated social networking software. With more than 1.4 million active users, Mendeley has transformed the academic research landscape, creating new pathways for collaboration among students, professors and their peers around the world“.

A comparison table demonstrates how the collaborative and free tool Mendeley is equal or better than paying or free competitors (Endnote, Zotero, Refworks).

The white paper is free of charge:

Swets. White paper: Where is the library in the digital workflow of research? Research in the age of social media. 2012. 18 p.
http://www.swets.com//mendeley?sid=1215

A product review in VIP Report.

“The target customers of Intelligence Plaza are primarily decision-makers, top management, strategic planning, business development, sales and marketing, research and development and market intelligence professionals.

Intelligence Plaza aggregates information from RSS sources and search results. It does function as a content management system (CMS).

Intelligence Plaza (GIA, Finland) is very well integrated with SharePoint. Not only does it interface with SharePoint, it also has the ability to integrate a “lightweight” Intelligence Plaza interface into SharePoint.

Read more:

Brown, Scott. Focus on: Intelligence Plaza. VIP Magazine, Issue 94, September 2011. ISBN: 978-1-907594-85-4
http://web.freepint.com/go/shop/report/1907

EasyBib, the web bibliography maker, announces the release on an app for iPhone.

Create accurate MLA, APA, and Chicago style citations in seconds by scanning a book bar code or by typing the name of a book. Build and manage your works cited. Once done, email your citations and then export your citations to EasyBib.com’s popular bibliography management service.

Accessible on iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/easybib/id436768184?mt=8

EasyBib:
http://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/News/Internet-Resources/Cr%c3%a8me-of-the-Web—EasyBib-74926.aspx

As expected since July 2010 (see http://scienceintelligence.wordpress.com/tag/2collab/), the Elsevier social bookmarking service will be discontinued as from April 15, 2011.

Elsevier advices to migrate data to Mendeley or to RefWorks.

http://www.2collab.com/warning/

News tweeted by http://twitter.com/#!/crid

harmon.ie for SharePoint is an Outlook sidebar that brings SharePoint to every business user by providing easy, full-featured access to SharePoint from the convenience of the email client.

• Drag-and-drop access to SharePoint directly from Outlook
• Links to SP libraries (not more attached files)
• Manage and share your projects correspondance into SP
• Preview of your colleague profiles in Outlook
• …

http://harmon.ie/SharePoint/Product 

Case study: NextDocs for SharePoint. (information provided by the Vendor)

The challenge for the company was the manual process of finding, capturing, reviewing, approving, and storing documents for regulatory agencies. There was no consistent process for managing this task, no central document repository, and no significant automation.

They began searching for a document management solution designed to meet the needs of Life Sciences companies. This solution needed to comply with recognized standards, had to be easy to use by employees in many locations, and had to fit in with the company’s IT strategy.

Sanofi Pasteur MSD deployed the NextDocs Document Management System. Using Microsoft SharePoint Server as a foundation, the NextDocs solution provides a powerful document management, workflow, and collaboration solution that meets FDA 21 CFR Part 11 requirements.

Sanofi Pasteur MSD executives wanted a single solution that would provide company-wide regulatory compliant document management. That meant an FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliant solution and that authorized users could access easily and consistently, from any location around the world. Furthermore, no additional management or administrative burdens could be placed on the company’s small IT department.

Sanofi Pasteur MSD uses Microsoft SharePoint Server for internal sharing and collaboration, so it wanted to find a standards-compliant document management solution that would leverage that investment.

Using built-in workflow and collaboration tools, the NextDocs software automated key tasks, including:

• Routing documents for review

• Reminding signatories when they needed to review and approve documents

• Capturing digital signatures

• Saving the final approved versions of the documents in a standard PDF format

• Storing these documents in a secure yet easily accessible data repository

The NextDocs Regulatory Document Management Module is a complete solution for managing documentation needed for CTD/eCTD and related filings in a SharePoint based system.

NextDocs guides users through the production of submission ready documents by enforcing the use of CTD/eCTD required granularity, requiring templates, producing PDF renditions that meet the myriad of agency requirements, and collecting 21 CFR Part 11 compliant electronic signatures.

 http://www.nextdocs.com/en-us/Case%20Studies/Sanofi-Pasteur-MSD-Case-Study.pdf 

www.nextdocs.com

EasyBib is a web-based bibliography maker, designed by ImagineEasy and now supported by the library cooperative OCLC.

Pick-up your references from various sources (websites, books, articles, etc.), choose your citations format and import your bibliography in MS Word or in Google Doc…

Very intuitive…  Might become a serious competitor of Zotero, Mendeley, RefWorks etc.

A pity: the freemium version gives ads on the right side

http://easybib.com/cite/view

Social bookmarking tools enable people to bookmark interesting resources on the web, tag them, and share the information with other users.

Scientists want to store, search, and share professional, scholarly literature.  Today there are four established social bookmarking tools serving academic purposes:

1. CiteULike (www.citeulike.org),
2. Connotea (www.connotea.org),
3. BibSonomy (www.bibsonomy.org),
4. and 2collab (www.2collab.com).

 In social bookmarking, users play the key role. The whole idea is to profit from content created by a large number of users.

The competition among BibSonomy, CiteULike, and Connotea raises the question of whether one service will be able to gain an edge over its competitors.

Results of the test:

The road testing was to create 10 references from various publishers to see how often bookmark was successfullty created without subsequent manual correction

• CITEULIKE:
  • 480,000 visits per month
  • +++: Citegeist (most popular articles)
  • Road testing: 8/10
• CONNOTEA:
  • 690,000 visits:per month
  • +++: My Library toolbox
  • +++: target the medical community
  • Road testing: 3/10
• BIBSONOMY:
  • 620,000 visits per month
  • Road testing: 4/10
• 2COLLAB:
  • 44,000 visits per month
  • Road testing: 1/10

Because of its poor abilities (except with ScienceDirect references) 2collab is renamed “2collapse” by authors of the article!

Sabrina Reher; Stefanie Haustein. Social Bookmarking in STM: PUTTING SERVICES TO THE ACID TEST. ONLINE, Vol.34, N°6, Nov-Dec 2010, pp. 34-42

The Google enterprise blog announces the availability of a new product – Google Cloud Connect - which seeks to make it easier for people using Google Docs and Microsoft Office to collaborate on working with documents.

The application works between Google Docs and Microsoft Office to synchronise changes to documents made by different editors in close to real-time.

Users of Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 can sync their Office documents to the Google Cloud without ever leaving Office. Once synced, documents are backed up, given a unique URL, and can be accessed from anywhere (including mobile devices) at any time through Google docs. As the files are stored in the cloud, people always have access to the current version.

Once in the Google Cloud, documents can be easily shared and even simultaneously edited by multiple people, from right within Office. A full revision history is kept as the files are edited, and users can revert to earlier versions in one click.

According to Google, it will soon make the feature available free of charge to the general public.
My opinion: could be a great step beyond for the global adoption of cloud computing by a large audience

More info at:
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/11/bridge-to-cloud-google-cloud-connect.html