Dell gets into scientific networking
January 14, 2008
)The last place you expect to see a piece on healthcare social networking is the Dell blog. Naturally, I was intrigued when I chanced upon a blog post there entitled Harnessing Online Communities to Further Medical Research. The post points to BioMedExperts, an online scientific community “powered by Dell”). What is BioMedExperts
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.
When I first saw the post, I was about to dismiss it, but the site is actually quite interesting, and the goals are definitely intriguing. In other words time to poke around a little more. The site has been developed by Collexis, which I have always known as an informatics, search and data mining company. A quick signup and checkout of the site reveals a beautifully designed, and likely very useful set of features which seem to a cross between LinkedIn and Connotea, but with some absolutely beautiful functionality. Here is a quick Jing screencast highlighting some of the sites features
At launch the site had 1.4 million profiles and 12 million pre-established connections, including myself, although it has only three of my publications in there.
I wish there was some way of taking ownership of that profile. There might be, just haven’t found it yet.
Does the site have potential? Given how well it is designed and what it offers I think so. The challenge will be getting people to use it. We use Connotea, and LinkedIn, so there will be some barrier to using another site. On the other hand, one could build in connectivity to those sites, using OAuth and other standards as they are developed (data portability is going to be the 2008 mantra). If those capabilities are there, I think scientists looking to build collaborations around interests and/or publications might just end up using the site. I will probably follow up when I’ve had more time on the site.
Technorati Tags: Dell, Collexis, Social Network, Biomedical
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