FSRG Secretary, MI Poling, announced recently that FSRG had begun a new visibility initiative to designed to increase FSRG's web presence and spark interest from consumers and professionals. As part of the effort, FSRG academic and research faculty, staff, and students (AR-FSS) will be encouraged to create individual professional profiles in appropriate academic, research, and similar professional social networking platforms. The project got kicked-off with the launch of a Facebook page, which at last count had 22 'Likes', and they have been able to find more people that are potentially interested in volunteering for research. This move was followed by the launch of profiles for Physiologist-in-Chief, RJ McCormick, on Research Crossroads, ResearchGate, Biomed Experts, and Linkedin. Research Crossroads promotes transparency for research funding by tracking and publishing grant awards researchers receive; it also includes networking features for end-users. ResearchGate is a Facebook-like platform for researchers, and BioMed Experts tracks scientific publications and allows end-users to network. Linkedin (NYSE: LNKD) is a social networking site for professionals; it permits use of limited free features, including creation of a profile, an abbreviated form of which is available to non-registered users through regular web search. Social networking features are also provided in the form of 'Connections'. Poling, who is also McCormick's research student and is listed on all FSRG study protocols, also launched profiles on several social networking sites, including: NEXTBIO, TrialX, and BioPortfolio, all of which had listings for our studies with inforation having appearently been obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov. NEXTBIO and BioPortfolio seem similar in their function to help researchers find information based on their background and use it it creative ways. NEXTBIO Basic and BioPortfolio are free; BioPortfolio charges a fee for posting information. TrialX seems to have limited free functions and is mostly a fee-for-service site. Poling also launched individual and organisation profiles on MedPedia, a wiki for medical information that adheres to standard medical writing code of ethics in terms of ethical disclosures, training, and similar points. MedPedia is co-sponsored by several leading academic and medical institutions, including: Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School, and the U.K. National Health Service (NHS). According to Wikipedia, a part of WkiMedia, on whose software MedPedia runs, 'Medpedia is composed of three primary components: 1) a collaborative encyclopedia (also referred to as the "knowledge base"), 2) a Network & Directory for health professionals and organisations, [and] 3) Communities of Interest where medical professionals and non-professionals come together to discuss topics of interest. [...] Content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) license.' FSRG also deployed several new enterprise-level apps, said Poling. 'These apps, in addition to Core Google Apps and apps previously deployed from the Google Apps Marketplace, should help FSRG AR-FSS be more productive, organised, and effective, Poling said. Deployed apps, which are available only to AR-FSS through their domain account, include: Aviary Design Tools, Bookmarks, EchoSign Electronic Signature for Google Apps, Gantter Project, PresentOnlineNow, Rhino Accounting, SurveyMonkeyApp, TripIt, and Moderator (Google Labs). FSRG does not have any financial or contractual with any company or other entity mentioned. The mention of any entity does imply a product recommendation or opinion. Product and platform decisions were based on objective, multi-criterion evaluation. |
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