The Value of a Unique Researcher Identifier to ChemSpider Projects
Antony WilliamsORCID Meeting, Boston, May 18th 2011
RSC: Publisher and community hub
Authors: 20,000 articles a year†
100 books†
Magazine articles†
Referees*, subscribers*, readers
* We know who/where these people are† we knew who they were at the time of writing
RSC: Membership organisation
46,000 members worldwide
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for our members
What would help to link everything our members do towards CPD?
What more can we do to serve the community of chemists?
A Pragmatic Vision“Build a Structure Centric Community to
Serve Chemists”
Integrate chemical structure data on the web Create a “structure-based hub” to information and
data Provide access to structure-based “algorithms” Let chemists contribute their own data Allow the community to curate/correct data
ChemSpider
>26 million chemicals from over 400 data sources, generally linked out to the original sources
Serving Chemists and Life Scientists around the world. Thousands of users and approaching a million transactions per day
Linked into primary internet resources such as Wikipedia
Search for a Chemical by name
Available Information….
Crowdsourced “Annotations”
Users can add Descriptions/Syntheses/Commentaries Links to PubMed articles Links to articles via DOIs Add spectral data Add Crystallographic Information Files Add photos Add MP3 files Add Videos
Spectra
Antony Williams vs Identifiers
Passport ID
Dad, Tony, others
SSN
Green Card
License5 email addressesChemSpiderman (blog, Twitter account, Facebook, Friendfeed)OpenID….
Aspirin names and synonyms
• Text searches depend on correct association
• 335 suggested identifiers for Aspirin just on PubChem!
• Disambiguation dictionaries are necessary, not just for authors!
The Final Search Strategy
All Those Names, One Structure
Inherited Naming Errors
Inherited errors from every database… all public compound databases, including ours, have errors
“Incorrect” structures – assertions, timelines etc
“Incorrect” names associated with structures
ENORMOUS CHALLENGE
“Curate” Identifiers
Community annotations to curate datawww.chemspider.com/feedbackcurated.aspx
ChemSpider Contributions
Over 130 people have curated and annotated data on ChemSpider
Crowdsourcing…but a small crowd A long tail effect – thousands down to one (many) About a dozen people have deposited spectra and
other analytical data
No formal recognition vehicle for contribution…yet!
How can we recognize contribution?
SyntheticPages
A database of reaction syntheses: “How to make a particular chemical”
A crowdsourced effort to build the database
Feedback and Comments from the community (blog-like)
Each publication gets a Digital Object Identifier
Authors and Commenters
Would be ideal to have the author registered with their ORCID and expose readers, downloads and associated comments
Commenters on a synthesis would be associated with their ORCID
SyntheticPages
Alt-Metrics easily apply to CSSP
ORCID IDs will be directly associated with registered users
Researchers page will capture and list all activities
Every curation, annotation and deposition will expose the activity to an AltMetrics engine
ChemSpider needs ORCID
ChemSpider is a crowdsourcing community
Contributors deserve recognition
Wikipedia “Barnstormer Awards” are unlikely to suffice!
ORCID offers professional recognition within the community of choice
RSC, ORCID and Education
RSC supplies free educational resources through school and undergraduate level
How can altmetrics help to 1) build a CV? 2) to get a job? 3) to get a grant? 4) to find collaborators? 5) To contribute to research reviews?
Is school too early to get an ORCID ID?
With Great Fanfare…
NPC Browser http://tripod.nih.gov/npc/
Curation required
Curation required
Request to Curate
What’s in it for Me?
If databases start taking ORCID IDs then contribution is measured, tracked and fed back to the “AltMetrics engines”
Reputation is captured, and hopefully enhanced
About reputation…
ORCID to Preserve Reputation
ORCID will connect things together ORCID enables an organization to improve
interactions with its “community” - authors, reviewers and users
To enable Continuing Professional Development for the future
To help build up a complete CV of contributions for career advancement
To give credit for crowdsourced activities
Thank you
Email: [email protected] Twitter: ChemConnectorPersonal Blog: www.chemconnector.comSLIDES: www.slideshare.net/AntonyWilliams