Are you interested to knowing how your research has been used? How can it help?

1. Tenure
2. Progress reports
3. Identify similar research projects
4. Duplication or confirmation of research findings
5. Correction of research findings
6. Improvement of research findings
7. Extension of research (different human populations, different animal models or species, etc.)
8. Proper attribution/credit of research findings
9. Quantify return on investment for funding
10. Justification for future requests for funding
11. Demonstration of research impact
12. Identify potential collaborators for a future research project

Are you interested in learning how to track your research? See Who is Citing Your Work. This is a PPT tutorial that demonstrates four resources that authors can use to track their research: Google Scholar, SCOPUS, Web of Science and PubMed Faceoff. All resources are available to the Washington University School of Medicine community.

Despina G. Contopoulos-Ioannidis, George A. Alexiou, Theodore C. Gouvias, and John P. A. Ioannidis, “Life Cycle of Translational Research for Medical Interventions,” Science (5 September 2008) Vol. 321, no. 5894, 1298 - 1299.

Excellent review of the research process that discusses the long road from the initial discovery of a medical intervention to a highly cited article. Among the recommendations made by the authors:

1. Scientists should convey to funders and the public the immense difficulty of the scientific discovery process.

2. Multidisciplinary collaboration with focused targets and involving both basic and clinical sciences should be encouraged.

3. Discovery of new substances and interventions remains essential, but proper credit and incentives should be given to accelerate the testing of these applications in high-quality, unbiased clinical research and the replication of claims for effectiveness.

Check out this article, Searching for Clarity: A Primer on Medical Studies, from the New York Times (published September 30, 2008) by Gina Kolata. The article provides an overview of medical research and three basic principles for understanding medical findings from clinical trials.

The article also includes a link to “How to Read a Medical Study (Skeptically).”

NIH issued a notice (NOT-OD-08-119), Reminder Concerning Grantee Compliance with Public Access Policy and Related NIH Monitoring Activities, that includes guidance on how to demonstrate compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy.

For more information on how to locate and cite the PMCID or the NIHMS ID reference numbers or what to do if neither is available, please see ”How to Locate and Cite the PMCID.”

The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (HR6845) was recently introduced. The bill includes a proposal to prohibit federal agencies from requiring a transfer of copyright for a work generated by federal funds.

Related Readings:

Alliance for Taxpayer Access

ARL/ALA/SPARC Memo

Copyright Alliance

Hearing on the Fair Copyright Research Act, held on 11 September 2008 (video)

Library Journal Academic Newswire

Professional Scholarly Publishing Press Release

SCOPUS recently announced that it has added Articles in Press (AiP), abstracts of accepted research papers published prior to being printed, from journals published by Karger and Nature Publishing Group. This adds to the collection of AiPs currently in SCOPUS from Elsevier and Springer journals.  In the fall, AiPs from BioMed Central and IEEE will also be available.  From the SCOPUS announcement:

“Scopus AiP abstracts are citable and precede the final published, printed version by up-to-four months, significantly accelerating the knowledge discovery process for researchers. Researchers will gain access to the full-text by linking from Scopus to the publishers’ digital library. This early access provides greater connectivity to the current state of research in a range of fields, as well as a more timely method for evaluating the output of authors and institutions. Since AiPs are posted online either as an accepted manuscript or online publication (according to each publisher’s release policy), they may still be subject to changes and/or corrections by the author or publisher. Scopus clearly labels AiPs as such so researchers are aware that an updated abstract will be made available once the papers are in print.”

The European Commission recently announced a new pilot program that allows for unrestricted access to EU-funded research results after an embargo period between six to 12 months. From the press release:

“The Commission’s open access pilot, to run until the end of FP7, aims to ensure that the results from EU-funded research are progressively made available to all. Grant recipients will be required to deposit peer reviewed research articles or final manuscripts resulting from their FP7 projects in an online repository. They will have to make their best effort to ensure open access to these articles within either six or twelve months after publication, depending on the research area. This embargo period will allow scientific publishers to get a return on their investment.”

Check out Web inSuggest, a tool that provides related websites, images or bookmarks based on a website URL, image or del.icio.us user name that you enter.  According to the inSuggest blog, “inSuggest makes online life easier with advanced recommendation technology for bookmarks, images and web pages.”

The PMID : PMCID Converter is a new  tool on PubMed that allows for entry of a PubMed Indentifier number (PMID) for a work that is in PubMed Central in oder to find the associated PubMed Central Identifier number (PMCID), or vice versa.  The PMID : PMCID Converter also allows for entry of mulitple numbers as a batch process.

This tool will be useful for NIH-funded investigators in order to meet the requirements of the NIH Public Access Policy. Effective as of 25 May 2008, investigators are required to note the PMCID for any work that falls under the NIH Policy in NIH proposals, applications and progress reports.

What is a comprehensive literature search? How to know when you’ve exhausted the literature?

Questions to ask . . .
· Do your research results provide a clear chain of evidence in demonstrating the accumulation of knowledge on a particular topic?
· Did you find the first description or research of a particular topic?
· Do scholarly books or monographs verify the first description or research on your particular topic?
· Do your research results using more than one resource continually refer to the same core group of authors and papers?
· Do your research results using more than one resource refer to the same person or research group as being the first to identify or describe a particular topic?
· Have you followed up on relevant references and synonyms that you discovered in your searching?
· Have you located the most current information on the topic?
· Did you consult with recognized experts in the field to ask if they are aware of research you may have missed?
· Have you checked all your references for errata or retractions?
· Have you used a search engine to search the Web to locate materials not indexed by databases?