Biomedical Research Innovation Language - Part IV - Currently existing applications for experts

To continue with the description of the remaining BRIL components, we will now present a description of the Expert element. One point that has not been mentioned in the previous post, but that should be evident by now, is that the previous two elements (Databases and Analysis Methods) are conceptual in that they represent theoretical concepts. In contrast, the expert element as well as the upcoming staff and infrastructure elements, are physical in that they represent real people or objects. So, let's get started:

Experts element
The role of the Experts element is to provide information on the researchers who are currently part of the research site. This information is helpful in evaluating whether a given researcher would be have the knowledge, experience and time to participate in a project you propose. Experts are described based on three sub-elements:

a. Education and training: This section describes the academic degrees and previous education of the researcher. This information is important in that the educational background many times define the research areas where a given researcher feels comfortable. Their training also tends to determine the language to be used when communicating with them. For example, if a researcher has an educational background constituted by a residency training in Radiology and also an MPH, this person will feel comfortable with an invitation to participate in a new project related to imaging diagnosis and described using statistical concepts. This same person might feel confused, however, if this proposal uses concepts from Biomedical Informatics since that was not part are of his/her original training.

b. Publications: Publications literally define the researcher interest profile, with the exception of the very latest areas of interest that still have not been converted into publications. Areas where researchers have published in the past largely determine areas where they would feel comfortable participating in the future, which is a useful piece of information when trying to engage a researcher into a new collaboration. The Publications element for biomedical research has been standardized by PubMed, thus allowing for graphical displays such as the use of tag clouds. This method allows for the description, in a single picture, of the entire publication profile of a given researcher or a group of researchers. A good example of tag clouds applied to the publication element is the PubCloud application, where the font size indicates how often a concept appears in the publication profile, while font color indicate how recently that concept has appeared.

c. Current commitments: Current commitments include the percentage of time a researcher is currently allocating to ongoing research projects. Although percentages of time have been criticized for not accurately describing the true commitment of researchers to their ongoing projects, they at least provide a big picture of how busy a given researcher might be. This provides an idea of whether they would be available for additional projects.

Not coincidentally, the three above-mentioned sub-elements match the components of well-established standardized curriculum vitae formats such as the NIH Biosketch
as well as parts of the Lattes curriculum used in several other countries. A partial implementation of the concept of Expert element was made through the BioS application (Shah and Pietrobon, article under review), created by the Center for Excellence in Surgical Outcomes.