FEATURE Content databases
Smoothing the workflow
Content databases are continually evolving to support research libraries and researchers, writes Sharon Davies
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s researchers are presented with many more ways to find scholarly papers online, so content databases are being developed and evolved to ensure researchers have the best experience of sourcing research materials. Wouter Haak, Elsevier’s vice president of research data management solutions, observes: ‘Those in the front lines of science – researchers, research managers and librarians – are acutely aware that they find themselves in an ever more demanding and fiercely competitive environment. Ultimately, members of this academic research community want to make a difference for the world. Success in achieving this goal depends on all of them being effective with their time and work
to achieve and maintain a competitive edge. ‘For this, academics already rely on the existing platforms from information solution providers. But their fast-changing environment requires innovations beyond and on top of those platforms. In building these new research tools, we started by listening to the needs of researchers, research managers and librarians. Many invited us to observe their daily work and answered our questions. They participated in ideation workshops and encouraged us to develop concepts from these workshops. They then tested prototypes with us. The results of these collaborations have inspired a suite of new tools and platforms designed to serve their changing needs.’
Haak adds: ‘Elsevier is creating this suite to support researchers directly in everyday, real- life challenges. Researchers tell us that their ability to achieve their goals and be creative is under constant pressure through incredible demands on their time. They compete for grants, run projects or labs, conduct research, write, edit and review manuscripts, mentor and teach. To keep up in their fields, they have to search for and sift through a tremendous amount of information. Further pressures come from being encouraged to perform
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more interdisciplinary research, often with the requirement of building a network of collaborators both inside and outside their institutions. ‘We are working to help them connect our content, products, metrics and academic communities in more intuitive ways – basically through collecting the underlying data from our platforms and combining these to drive better decision support tools and features. It will not be a stand-alone product or single web destination.
‘Instead, it comprises tools that connect our existing databases and platforms in intelligent ways and complements them with new functionalities where needed, like social networking and linking to external content and platforms. It will support key individual and institutional objectives: smoothing the workflow, increasing collaborations, showcasing work, securing (more) funding and ultimately turning innovations into impactful outcomes.’ Haak provides examples of functionalities that are already available including: My Research Dashboard, connecting Scopus, ScienceDirect and Mendeley; Mendeley Data (Beta), enabling researchers to put their research data online so it can be cited, shared
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