Here’s a site that allows patients to send suggestions to researchers doing work on their health problem — translational research really is a loop!
http://www.patientslikeme.com/
The business model is to sell the data it collects to drug companies — a form of citizen science?
What is the best web design for a social networking platform? We’re certainly thinking about this as we plan on the release of UCSF Profiles, our research (as opposed to ‘social’) networking site. Smashing Magazine has a useful article that summarizes key principles. One of these is about standards – they encourage the usage of OpenSocial as a standard in building social networking sites. And – we’re glad to say, we’re on it. We’re in the process of extending our research networking product, ‘Profiles’, as an OpenSocial “container”. i.e. retrofitting the software so that it’s possible to use other OpenSocial applications, built, for example, for applications like Linked In, to plug and play with our product. This will be a primary contribution of UCSF’s in the continued open source development of the Harvard-developed ‘Profiles’.
Not sure if this could be useful for UCSF researchers, but an interesting list of 50 Open Source Projects in Medicine with some discussion of what factors promote success
Usually scientists don’t speak about pre-publication research and preliminary findings in public. It’s the risk of being scooped. Yet there is an online platform ”Nature Precedings” that offers to do just that. It’s a free service offered by the Nature Publishing Group where scientists can share preliminary data posting pre-print manuscripts, posters, reports etc. It seems there are researchers out there who are open to trying such new approach. And, there is one incentive that may persuade even more researchers to throw the doors open: they can more easily claim earliest ownership for new ideas.
Prototyping is an important step in the process of developing web applications, allowing you to test, refine, and clearly communicate ideas about how the application will work, before costly resources are spent on development. Here’s a useful little article from OneXtraPixel on the importance of utilizing wireframes in prototyping for the web, including an annotated list of tools for creating wireframes.
The Importance Of Wireframes In Web Design And 9 Tools To Create Wireframes..
I guess most researchers look for money to explore ideas. With little funding they can run initial experiments and find out if an idea is worthy of a grant proposal. But processing small donations comes with difficulties for researchers.
The website SciFlies is preparing to offer a solution. At SciFlies researchers can sign on to build a profiling profile to present themselves and their research projects. On the profile they can present their research vision, past accomplishments, interests and even their current reading list. Website visitors can then donate and support the projects they find most worthwhile. SciFlies provides a mechanism that allows small financial contributions to accumulate and get delivered at some later point.
This model may be interesting for us and the Virtual Home portal, once we think about ways to reach out to the community. It could create long-term interest in researchers and their work. But more importantly, it provides a powerful incentive for researchers to update their profiles.
By the way, the thoughts behind the name “SciFlies” are pretty unique. It says: “It’s a homage to the ubiquitous fruitfly research model, a shorthand description of the goal to create a ‘swarm’ of science supporters, and a reference to ‘fly’, a slang term for cool.”
P.S. The SciFlies website is work in progress. I will update the blog as soon as the website is fully launched.
Fast Company presents five examples of the effective use of online video as part of an organization’s overall communication strategy.
I was looking at people/firms with design expertise for Drupal, and unfortunately even though some looked like they’d designed well for others (though nothing spectacular) their own firm web site were nothing to write home about. Which, for a design firm, is dissapointing.
Through one firm though I came across this drupal site, which has some positives. I like the way they have news and events (and how they break up the top nav bar a bit) You may be interested in looking at the site as you think of new home page designs.
I think this is an interesting example for a CTSI website. Several graphical elements are used on the site.
I like the Research Services Page that includes a graphical element guiding to “Contact an Expert”. I also find the Find a Collaborator Page useful. Take a look!
BioMed 2.0 