ChemSpider: Building a knowledge-based community for chemists using social and data networking...
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ChemSpider: Building a knowledge-based community for chemists using social and data networking technologies
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In less than 2 years ChemSpider has become one of the primary online resources for chemists providing access to an unsurpassed aggregate of free-access knowledge and data. ChemSpider was developed with the intention of providing a structure centric community for chemists that would be enhanced by data depositions, curations and annotations by the community. The system presently hosts over 21.5 million chemical compounds from over 200 data sources. Working with a network of advisors, collaborators and data providers ChemSpider has created a unique resource of integrated information for chemists. These efforts have enabled us to support the curation of the Wikipedia chemistry pages, the production of a community supported Open Access chemistry journal and provision of web services integrated to spectrometer systems distributed around the world. This talk will provide an overview of how ChemSpider utilized social and data networking to create a community for chemistry.
Transcript of ChemSpider: Building a knowledge-based community for chemists using social and data networking...
ChemSpider: Building a knowledge-based community for chemists using social and data networking technologies
What is ChemSpider? ChemSpider is:
An online database for chemists A link farm for over 21 million compounds integrated to
200 data sources
A curation platform for the public to assist in improving the quality of data online
A deposition platform for the public to annotate and extend the data
A “Community for Chemists”
Search Cholesterol
How Was ChemSpider Built?
ChemSpider was a “hobby project” Housed in a basement and running off
three servers – one bought, two built Sensitive to weather and power stability Went live at ACS Spring 2007 in Chicago
By June 2009…
By June 2009 > 6000 users/day initiating over 80,000 transactions per day
We had a significant following in the “internet Chemistry” community
We were linked to from many other sites – Wikipedia, other online databases, from commercial software packages
How did we leverage the internet?
“Leveraging the Internet to Advance your Position in the Market”
The internet IS our market – the website is self-leveraging if:
1) It does what it says it does 2) We can get people to the site to look 3) We stay honest in our intentions
That growth curve…
Very difficult to say why we saw growth: new resource, diverse data, focus on quality, all-inclusive approach to chemistry
And the spike?
The Benefits of Blogging
Blogs allow passions, opinions, critiques, data and other “stuff” to be shared with the public
Blogs are a low cost way to “do good” as well as “cause harm” – anyone can blog
ChemSpider was a disruption to the status quo, at a very interesting time
Interesting Time Point…
PubChem as a domain darling
Internet chemistry advocates adored PubChem
Lots of questions regarding “why another PubChem” when ChemSpider came online
Our purpose was different…
Interesting comments in the blogosphere
The Monkeys at ChemZoo
http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/blogs/murrayrust/?p=261
Blogs Can Educate Us All…
What is logP versus logD? Calcium carbonate IS soluble
Partially Soluble isn’t Insoluble
When experts say it’s ok: http://www.chemspider.com/blog/calcium-carbonate-logp-predictions-and-chris-lipinski.html
…and so into the Blogosphere
Blogging Gives a voice to your passions, intentions,
advances, features and gathers feedback
Visible to your community – if you do work to connect with your community
Is time-consuming, can be challenging but more pluses than minuses
After 6 months of blogging: http://tinyurl.com/plrrcj
Network Yourself
Engage the community
“Allowed” Wikipedia Presence
Present Yourself: Slideshare
http://www.slideshare.net/AntonyWilliams
Other Social Networking Tools
ChemSpider presently has a presence on: The ChemSpider Blog The ChemSpider Forum LinkedIn SciVee TV YouTube
Antony Williams, ChemSpiderman is on LinkedIn The ChemConnector Blog ResearchGate SlideShare Twitter Others….
Grow Your Business
Being discoverable on a web search is only part of the plan nowadays
Be an expert in your field and be vocal: network online, challenge the status quo, be honest and upfront, take a stance, it’s your reputation to gain/lose
So we did something right…
ChemSpider at RSC ChemSpider is now a part of RSC
What helped us gain the attention? Honorable and ethical in the public eye Demonstrated competence in our domain Gathered a good following from the community Defined a unique position as a crowd sourced
platform for the betterment of science Very public face through networking and online
participation Offered something different but complementary
The Internet and You
The internet is a powerful means to expose and market yourself but..be careful
RSC colleague “not obviously crazed”
Acknowledgments
Twitter, LinkedIn, SciVee, Friendfeed… Royal Society of Chemistry – David James,
Richard Kidd, Graham McCann and an enormous team behind them
Valery Tkachenko, Sergey Golotvin and Will Griffiths
The ChemSpider advisory group
