academica
Post on 19-Jan-2015
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Academica: Maryland’s iSchool faculty network
Scott Abromowitz
Academica seeks to ease the process of identifying potential doctorial/master’s advisors for prospective students Also, aids academics/researchers in collaborative research
With a magnitude of information available online and no easy way to curtail relevant from irrelevant information related to professors
Create easily digestible biographies that overcome usability issues of a professor’s website Many are outdated or poorly designed
Focus on visualization - Quickly spot and see where funding is going and what resources the funding is achieved from
What is Academica
Similar Products
VIVO is the most similar to the functionality of Academica, as it strives to create an interface for academic collaboration.
Limited use – People must setup their own profile for optimal use (citations/bibliographic data)
Difference: Does not focus on funding or citation count
VIVO
Offers a basic bio, yet not automatically generated and users can pick and chose what is visible.
The system is lacking in graphic visualization – only shows funding amounts as numbers and not visual (only textual)
Mendeley
Limited to searching and seeing citation count and co-investigators
Must create custom profiles on Google if desire for more personalization
Microsoft automatically generates a profile – but lacks funding information
Microsoft Academic Search & Google Scholar
Visualization of data Focus on funding Visualization
This is difficult to find – Though I purpose a future system that crawls websites for available data
Not one-size fits all approach: It utilizes/incorporates numerous data sources
Why Different?
The Home Screen
Search box
Basic information explaining the purpose of Academica
In designing the home screen, I strive to create an experience that is quick and to the point (no distractions pointing users to different services)
The basic functionality are explained to the user as various points. I would desire a link that connects users to more
information for better clarification in a future iteration.
I chose to place trees in the back of the search button to create an artistic and personal feeling
Friendly and Welcoming
iSchool Faculty Page
Traditional – Alphabetical order BIG pictures – for an easy representation of
the faculty member List of interest
iSchool Faculty Page
iSchool Faculty Page
Faculty Bio Page
Word cloud – automatically generated based on relevant topics in the professor’s research (papers, articles, books, et.)
Photograph generated from content services such as Microsoft Academic Search
Citation – Generated from Microsoft Academic Search
Funding & Grants Page
Graphic depiction of data
Publication Page
Help students better analyze potential advisor’s to see his/her funding and if there is a research fit A student may see the historical view of the professor, yet
over time this perspective/research focus might change Data is automatically generated – No interaction by the
professors (since little incentive to incorporate data) Focus, focus, focus on visualization – Better understand
funding and where it comes from – try to see influence of such funding on professors or their research
Why use Academica?
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