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UICollaboratory Research Profiles

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UICollaboratory Research Profiles FAQs

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About UICollaboratory Research Profiles

What are Research Profiles? The Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) at UIC is excited to launch a new tool to help faculty members and departments identify who is working in what scientific areas at UIC and UIUC. This tool, powered by Collexis, is called UICollaboratory Research Profiles and is available at: http://www.researchprofiles.collexis.com/uic/.

What do I use it for? An understanding of "who" in the organization is working on "what" can facilitate building collaborative teams and productive research relationships. UICollaboratory Research Profiles contains both career-long and current research information, requires little to no effort for creation or maintenance, and is easy to use. We have partnered with Collexis to implement the UICollaboratory Research Profiles. In addition to highlighting individual research expertise, the Research Profiles tool exposes connections among researchers and can assist in identifying potential collaborators both internally and at other organizations. This tool can also help find mentors and key knowledge holders, making connections between faculty, students, and staff easier.

What data is included? Collexis' Research Profiles use the freely available MEDLINE publication data (PubMed) as well as NIH-funded grant information (NIH RePORTER) to create a "fingerprint" of a researcher's subject expertise. This fingerprint is updated automatically as publications enter the MEDLINE database, meaning researchers are not required to manually maintain their individual profiles.

How does UICollaboratory Research Profiles get information about the university structure? We provided Collexis with the department structure at UIC and UIUC, and Collexis mapped researchers to their department or unit. This allows users to browse researchers by department, search by name, or search by topic to find experts in a particular area.

Which researchers are included in the tool? The Research Profiles tool is intended to highlight our research prominence in the health sciences and, therefore, currently includes research faculty at UIC and UIUC who have an affiliation with one of the health science colleges or who have a primary appointment in the college of bioengineering. This may be expanded to other areas of the university in the future. The included faculty list is maintained internally, and there may be a lag between a faculty member's hire date and generation of a fingerprint.

We welcome your input to make the UICollaboratory Research Profiles tool as complete and accurate as possible. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Melissa Garrett, Project Coordinator for the BI Core of CCTS at mwaite2@uic.edu.

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How do I use UICollaboratory Research Profiles?

There are many different uses for UICollaboratory Research Profiles, some of which are outlined below. Please click on a sample use case below to learn more about how UICollaboratory Research Profiles works.

Find a faculty expert on a specific topic:
Starting at the Home page: http://www.researchprofiles.collexis.com/uic/

1. At the upper right hand corner of the screen, in the text box with 'By Concept' highlighted, enter the topic for which you want to find an expert.
2. The search tool will automatically translate your "search term" into a matching MeSH term(s).
3. If presented a list of MeSH terms, click on the MeSH term that most closely matches the search term (i.e., the concept of interest to you).
4. The term you are searching for shows up in the upper right hand corner, noting you may select the source of the results to be publications or grants.
5. The left column will list the Faculty experts in order of significance and uniqueness to the topic you are searching. You can click the [+] next to each expert to see the publications or grants that cause them to show up associated with that topic.
6. The right column shows additional concepts that overlapped in publications with the term you are viewing. You can refine your query by clicking "Add" next to the term. This will allow you to narrow your search, giving you more specific results. You may add and remove concepts, refreshing the matching experts on the left.
7. Click on one of the faculty experts to view their profile, including details on their publications and grants.

Find out what a researcher is doing:
Starting at the Home page: http://www.researchprofiles.collexis.com/uic/

Searching:
1. In the upper right hand corner, select 'By Last Name' and enter a search for a researcher's last name. You may enter just a few letters of their last name to return more results.
2. Click on one of the faculty experts to view their profile, including details on their publications and grants, co-authors, institutional connections and their research network.

Browsing:
1. Navigate using the department structure to find experts and profiles of full departments.
2. Click on a department to see a list of faculty with primary appointments in that department and the research profile of that department.
3. Click on one of the faculty experts to view their profile, including details on their publications and grants, co-authors, institutional connections and their research network.

Find publications by a researcher:
Starting at the Home page: http://www.researchprofiles.collexis.com/uic/

Searching:
1. In the upper right hand corner, select 'By Last Name' and enter a search for a researcher's last name. You may enter just a few letters of their last name to return more results.
2. Choose the 'Publications' item on the left side to see a chronological listing of their publications.
3. Clicking on each publication provides more information on the publication and related topics.

Browsing:
1. Navigate through the department structure by clicking on the Department name and then locating faculty in the alphabetical list of faculty.
2. Click on one of the faculty experts to view their profile, including details on their publications and grants, co-authors and more.
3. Click on the "Publications" item on the left to view publications.

Find grant awards for a researcher:
Starting at the Home page: http://www.researchprofiles.collexis.com/uic/

1. In the upper right hand corner, select 'By Last Name' and enter a search for a researcher's last name. You may enter just a few letters of their last name to return more results.
2. Click on one of the faculty experts to view their profile.
3. Click on the Grants menu item on the left to view active NIH-funded grants for the researcher.

Finding researchers who match a funding announcement or research description using full text:
Starting at the Home page: http://www.researchprofiles.collexis.com/uic/

1. In the upper right hand corner, choose 'Full Text' for the search option.
2. Paste into the text box any free text you would like and click 'Find'. For example, enter the research objectives section of a funding announcement.
3. The recommended fingerprint will be created on the right hand side with recommended weights for each research term. The researchers inside the institution that match this fingerprint are returned in order on the left hand side.
4. Adjust the weights or remove concepts to create a more appropriate fingerprint if necessary. Each change in weighting will adjust the search results and refresh the list of experts on the left side of the page.
5. Click the researcher's name to see more information on their activities and academic output. For more information on the individual research profile, please click here.

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Support FAQs:

  • Who can I contact if I need help?
  • If I wish to schedule a demonstration of UICollaboratory Research Profiles, who should I contact?
  • If I find an error in my profile, how do I correct it?
  • Who is available to support the UICollaboratory Research Profiles tool?

Who can I contact if I need help?
UICollaboratory Research Profiles is supported by the Biomedical Informatics (BI) Core of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS).

If you have questions about adding or removing researchers, please contact Melissa Garrett, Project Coordinator for the BI Core, at mwaite2@uic.edu.

If you need help adding or removing publications from your profile, email the Collexis Quality Assurance team at perfectprofiles@collexis.com.

For all other questions, contact researchprofileshelp@uic.edu.

If I wish to schedule a demonstration of the Research Profiles, who should I contact?
Contact Melissa Garrett at mwaite2@uic.edu for information about demonstrations or training.

If I find an error in my profile, how do I correct it?
Collexis maintains a full team of Quality Assurance (QA) professionals that validate the disambiguation algorithm is working correctly, and each user can adjust their content by emailing this QA team at perfectprofiles@collexis.com, a link that is available on each researcher's individual profile page within the application.

Who is available to support the Research Profiles tool?
The BI Core of CCTS is providing education and training for departments and users regarding the Research Profiles tool. For more information, contact Melissa Garrett at mwaite2@uic.edu.

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General FAQs:

Who can access UICollaboratory Research Profiles?
Anyone who has the URL to the tool can view the Research Profiles.

What is PubMed/MedLine? What publications are included?
PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/) lets you search millions of journal citations and abstracts in the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and preclinical sciences. It includes access to MEDLINER and to citations for selected articles in life science journals not included in MEDLINE. PubMed also provides access to additional relevant Web sites and links to the other National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) molecular biology resources. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ PubMed is a free resource that is developed and maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), located at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

What publications are NOT included?
Articles that have been published in journals not included in PubMed will not show up in the UICollaboratory Research Profiles interface. For a complete listing of journals covered by PubMed, see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/citmatch_help.html#JournalLists

What grants are included?
The grant data included comes from the NIH RePORTER system. More information on NIH RePORTER is available at: http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter.cfm. Grants outside of NIH, such as from foundations or other public or private sources, are not included.

Which researchers are included?
The Research Profiles tool is intended to highlight our research prominence in the health sciences and, therefore, currently includes research faculty at UIC and UIUC who have an affiliation with one of the health science colleges or a primary appointment in the college of bioengineering. This may be expanded to other areas of the university in the future. The included faculty list is maintained internally, and there may be a lag between a faculty member's hire date and generation of a fingerprint. We welcome your input to make the UICollaboratory Research Profiles tool as complete and accurate as possible. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at researchprofileshelp@uic.edu.

How can I add my name to the list to be included?
Contact Melissa Garrett at mwaite2@uic.edu if you are interested in being included in UICollaboratory Research Profiles.

How often is the UICollaboratory Research Profiles data updated?
The faculty research profiles are updated on a weekly basis over the weekend. On Monday morning of each week, the system will have been refreshed with the most current PubMed publications and NIH-funded grants.

What is the difference between a researcher's public BioMedExpert Profile and the UICollaboratory Research Profiles listing? How are they similar or different?
BioMedExpert (www.biomedexperts.com) is a free profiling tool which contains profiles of about 1.8 million biomedical experts from all over the world. Profiles in BioMedExperts (BME) are automatically generated from the last 10 years of published articles in PubMed. The BioMedExpert profile uses only a basic algorithm to assign concepts from their disambiguated information. When an expert is included in the UICollaboratory Research Profiles implementation, their fingerprint is more refined and detailed as compared to BME.

Can a researcher provide someone his or her profile URL? Will that link remain the same after the database is refreshed?
Yes, a faculty member can provide someone his or her profile URL, simply by copying and pasting it into an email or document. The URL does not change after the weekly database refresh.

What other universities are using the Research Profiles? Can others access them, too?
Most implementations of Collexis Research Profiles are publicly available, and Collexis users include institutions across the spectrum of research organizations and CTSA sites, including University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University, Ohio State University, University of Miami, Wayne State University, and many more. In an upcoming release of our Research Profiles, we are planning to include links between each of the Research Profiles to allow users to connect to other universities.

Why does the research visualization move?
The research visualization we have created is a force directed visualization and is constantly re-evaluating the information that is presented to try to make all lines as equal a length as possible with as few crossing lines as possible. Because there is so much information trying to fit into the screen, it constantly re-evaluates and moves the visualization. It also rotates the visualization in three dimensions to expose other areas of the visualization in a 2D environment. At any time, clicking on any node or line or clicking the pause button at the top right will stop this motion so the user can explore the details more easily by clicking and dragging the nodes around.

What are Medical Subject Headings (MeSH terms)?
The Medical Subject Headings (MeSHR) thesaurus is a controlled vocabulary produced by the National Library of Medicine and used for indexing, cataloging, and searching for biomedical and health-related information and documents.

2010 MeSH includes the subject descriptors appearing in MEDLINER/PubMedR, the NLM catalog database, and other NLM databases. Many synonyms, near-synonyms, and closely related concepts are included as entry terms to help users find the most relevant MeSH descriptor for the concept they are seeking. In NLM's online databases, many terms entered by searchers are automatically mapped to MeSH descriptors to facilitate retrieval of relevant information.

Various online systems provide access to MeSH and the vocabulary is available in several online systems. These include the MeSH Browser, containing the complete contents of the vocabulary; the MeSH Entrez databases, which are designed to assist those searching MEDLINE/PubMed; and the UMLS MetathesaurusR with links to many other controlled vocabularies. Additional information about MeSH and direct access to MeSH data is provided on the Web at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh.

Why don't some general terms like "woman" behave as I would expect other MeSH Terms?
The reason some of these general terms behave differently is due to the way that MeSH check tags are created. MeSH terms have a special category called 'check tags' which are general terms for things like species, age group, gender and time periods. Unlike regular MeSH terms which are intended to capture major concepts in an article, check tags are included even if they are mentioned only briefly. As an example: if there is just one mention in an article of one subject who is identified as a 40-year old pregnant woman, the indexer will automatically include the terms 'human', 'female', 'adult' and 'pregnant' in the MeSH indexing. This impacts retrieval of terms significantly due to the breadth of articles tagged with these check tags, and therefore doesn't help much for expertise definition. Check tags function a little differently than MeSH terms, too, in that some of them (gender, animals and humans, for example) can never be classified as major concepts. Some check tags that are related to more specific topics are still valuable, such as animal models and related terms.

What is the relationship between Medical Subject Headings (MeSH terms) and the Research Profile concepts shown?
The full MeSH ontology is far too complex to put in the interface in any format that is approachable, so we have boiled the MeSH ontology down to a set of research terms that are much more navigable. We've done this by reducing the redundancy and detail layers of the MeSH term, resulting in a listing of information that is more navigable by the average user. Collexis does update the MeSH terms on an annual basis to ensure it is in sync with controlled vocabulary.

Why don't the [+] boxes appear on the 'Full Text' search?
One of the standard features throughout the interface is that an accordion box [+] appears next to terms to explore 'why' that term is appearing. When searching for experts related to a specific term, the [+] box will allow you to see what publications cause that term to appear in association with that expert. These publications appear in order of how significant the publication is related to the term that has been searched for. In order to make the full text weighting work in the results retuned by full text search, we remove this [+] feature in the interface.

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