SciVerse from Elsevier: New Single Search Access to Three Databases & Scientific Collaboration, Open API's from Elsevier Coming in Q4
We will have much more to say once we get some time to use the service. Perhaps the biggest news today is that Elsevier will release open API's in Q4 of this year. It will be worth watching to see if other major publishers do the same.
Elsevier today announced the launch of SciVerse, a platform that integrates the company’s key products and encourages the scientific community to collaborate on the development of customized search and discovery applications. Elsevier has committed to releasing the APIs (application programming interfaces) for all of the content on SciVerse and will offer application development support tools on the site.
“SciVerse is a start of a new journey for Elsevier where we plan to provide customized search and discovery solutions and increase interoperability within our products and third party services,” said Jay Katzen, Managing Director, Academic & Government Products, Elsevier. “We recognize that it is critical to involve the researchers and librarians in the creation of solutions as they are in the best position to identify and address their search and discovery challenges. By providing our content APIs later this year, we will empower researchers and developers to build custom applications to enhance their workflow and share these applications with the scientific community within SciVerse.”
At Launch (Today)
At launch SciVerse will include SciVerse Hub beta, a module that integrates ScienceDirect,Scopus and targeted web content from Scirus, Elsevier’s science-specific Internet search engine. SciVerse Hub beta allows for a single search across its integrated content with results ranked by relevancy and without duplication, saving valuable researcher time.
Combining familiar resources with new efficiencies, SciVerse also enables interoperability among ScienceDirect, Scopus and the new SciVerse Hub beta. For example, ScienceDirect users who also subscribe to Scopus will now be able to access key author information without leaving the article, and link directly into comprehensive lists of all an author’s documents and citations in Scopus.
SciVerse Hub beta will include three search and discovery applications at launch:
+ Methods section search application – allows researchers to search only the methodology and protocol sections of full-text articles.
+ Matching Sentences application – returns search results with the query words highlighted in the full sentence where they appear.
+ Prolific Authors application – prominently displays the most prolific authors for each search result.
The initial applications offer an example of the possible solutions that can be built using content APIs and were developed by NextBio, a provider of a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform for life sciences researchers which includes ontology-based semantic tools. Elsevier began collaborating with NextBio in 2009.
SciVerse SciTopics is a free, wiki-like knowledge-sharing service for the scientific community. It offers distilled, authoritative and up-to-date research summaries on a wide range of scientific topics.
+ Access SciTopics (Free)
++ RSS Feeds for New/Updated SciTopics Categories Are Also Available
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