Author Archives: Dina

New eRA Website Coming on April 30

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The newly redesigned eRA (electronic Research Administration) website is set to be launched by the NIH’s Office of Extramural Research on Tuesday, April 30, 2019.

Check out the New eRA Website preview video (4:32 min):


Notes from the eRA:

* The launch will require downtime of about 2 hours. As a result, the existing eRA website will not be available between 6:30 a.m. ET and 8:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, April 30.

* The eRA modules will continue to be operational during the downtime and can be accessed through the following URLs:

eRA Commons: https://public.era.nih.gov/commons
ASSIST: https://public.era.nih.gov/ASSIST
IAR: https://public.era.nih.gov/IAR

New Classes @ MSK Library

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The MSK Library’s May/June workshop schedule is now available! Be sure to read  the descriptions below of our newest training class offerings before registering for a session.

Please note that if the scheduled class times do not fit your calendar, you’re welcome to request an individual session (either in person or via WebEx) at a date/time that works best for you.

1) Finding Evidence Fast

Course Description:  Need answers on the go? This class will show you where to go to find the best evidence in easy to read formats for quickly answering clinical questions.

Learning Objectives – Learners will be able to:

  • Understand the levels of evidence
  • Differentiate between background and foreground questions
  • Identify mobile point of care tools
  • Learn where to find answers to clinical questions

2) EndNote for Systematic Reviews

Course Description:  Learn how to leverage the features/functionality of EndNote to streamline key citation management steps in your Systematic Review process.

Learning Objectives – Learners will be able to:

  • Use Groups to organize your citations (e.g., by source database searched for proper documentation, by reference/publication type, etc.) or to track items ordered via inter-library loan to minimize duplication of effort, etc.
  • Remove duplicates more efficiently by adjusting sensitivity, by rearranging the fields displayed to allow for easy record prioritization, etc.
  • Streamline obtaining full-text PDFs by using Find Full-Text via EndNote, by using the EndNote records to launch ILLiad request submissions, etc.
  • Export citation data in appropriate formats for importing into other tools that will be used for the subsequent (title/abstract/full-text) review steps (e.g., Excel, Covidence, DistillerSR, etc.).
  • Save compressed EndNote libraries to archive/document SR stages that will be needed for the development of the PRISMA flow chart.

3) ORCID: Open Research and Contributor ID

Course Description: As more and more publishers require that authors include an ORCID iD during the publication submission process, you might be wondering – what is ORCID, anyway? In this class, attendees will learn ORCID basics (what it is and how it works) and why an ORCID ID is an important tool for all authors who want to distinguish their work from others, maximize their research impact, and maintain compliance with publishers and granting agencies. Attendees will also learn about the connection between ORCID iD and Synapse, MSK’s publications and author profile system.

Learning Objectives – Learners will be able to:

  • Define what ORCID iD is and describe why it exists
  • Identify how author name disambiguation impacts researchers
  • Understand how to sign up for an ORCID iD and the benefits of the ORCID@MSK service
  • Understand how MSK’s publications and author profile system (Synapse) can be leveraged to populate ORCID profiles

4) Evaluating Journal Quality

Course Description: Come to this workshop to find out about the library and information resources that can help you to more comprehensively evaluate a journal’s “quality”. A variety of criteria that should be considered when deciding on where to submit a research manuscript for publication will be discussed.

Learning Objectives – To learn how to evaluate a journal by considering such criteria as:

  • Indexing & abstracting services
  • Journal metrics, publisher workflow stats
  • Unique Identifiers (DOI, ORCID, etc)
  • Other journal policies & requirements (protocol registration, reporting standards, etc)
  • Peer-review status/system, credit
  • Open Access vs. traditional publishing models
  • Copyright & permissions for re-use
  • Digital archiving for posterity

Questions? Just Ask Us!

ORCID Annual Report 2018

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If you are interested in learning more about how ORCID continues to grow and establish itself as an important resource for the global research community, be sure to check out the ORCID Annual Report for 2018, published on March 6th, 2019.

Meadows, Alice; Laurel, Haak; Buster, Michael; Brown, Josh; Buys, Matthew; Demeranville, Tom; et al. (2019): ORCID Annual Report 2018. https://doi.org/10.23640/07243.7811459.v1

There is also a blog post summarizing some of their key achievements, including reaching their 5 millionth registrant milestone in mid-2018. According to the full report: “as of 31 December 2018, 5,806,563 researchers from every country and discipline had registered for an ORCID iD.”

Of particular interest to MSK authors may be the fact that publishers (see page 11) continue to join ORCID, with eight more being added in 2018, “bringing the total to 105 (including 35 associations that are currently using — or planning to use — ORCID in publishing workflows).”

Also noteworthy: “by the end of 2018, with the researchers’ permission, 36,833,675 works had been added to ORCID records, 23,661,921 of which had been added by members.” To put this into perspective, (as of Feb 6, 2019) “PubMed comprises over 29 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books.” As such, the number of overall works cited in ORCID now exceeds the number of citations indexed in PubMed.

For those wondering how most works end up getting into ORCID, this data from the annual report may provide some useful insight: “The top organizations adding works to ORCID records are: Scopus (10,532,602), ResearcherID (4,521,258), Crossref — via two integrations: auto-update and their Search & Link wizard — (3,476,929), and Europe PubMed Central (1,921,838).”  In other words, high quality citation records from databases like Scopus, Web of Science (i.e., ReasearcherID), and Europe PMC provide a considerable amount of the citation information.

Crossref, itself a not-for-profit membership organization and one that researchers/authors may be less familiar with, is a utility resource that works with many publishers to supply metadata (among other things) for scholarly works. What this means for authors is that by providing publishers with an ORCID iD at the time of manuscript submission, they are increasing the chance that the subsequent publication later will become connected to the author’s ORCID profile (with their permission), generally thanks to Crossref.

With all of this progress, it is not surprising that more and more organizations are getting on board with ORCID. From the annual report (page 12): “Support for the publishers’ ORCID open letter continues to grow, and, as of the end of 2018, there were 70 signatory organizations, 23 of which are now requiring iDs for authors”.

So if you have not registered for one yet – your publisher may require you to have one the next time you proceed to submit a manuscript for publication. You’re therefore encouraged to use ORCID@MSK to register for one. Please see the MSK Library’s ORCID information page or Ask Us if you have any questions.