A great example of how Open Access can change the world

A teenager has discovered a new test for pancreatic cancer by using journal articles that were available on open access http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19291258


Just one great reason to publish your research in open access journals.

Another good reason is that many funding bodies and research councils now require that research funded by them is put on open access.

Read the new policy from Research Councils UK here http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/Pages/outputs.aspx
and from the Medical Research Council here http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Ourresearch/Ethicsresearchguidance/Openaccesspublishing/index.htm
The Wellcome Trust have a video here http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Policy/Spotlight-issues/Open-access/index.htm

More information on open access is here:
http://open-access.org.uk/
http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/guidance/authors.html

ScienceDirect Apps

ScienceDirect has moved into the world of apps and developers have provided some useful extra add-ons to make searching ScienceDirect even more useful.


Some of the ones that caught my eye are:

BrainLink For all articles in select neuroscience journals, this application identifies all neuro-anatomical structures, provides their 2D- and 3D-images (in a mouse, rat, monkey, or human, if available), and links them to the structure within BrainNavigator.

eReader Formats The eReader Formats application allows users to convert ScienceDirect articles as seen in the browser into ePUB or Mobipocket format, whichever is appropriate for the user's electronic reader device.

Protein Viewer A Jmol-based application for ScienceDirect which is displayed below the abstract if the article contains author-tagged protein identifiers, allowing you to browse through all protein models tagged in the article and interactively explore each of them.

Snippets Easily take and save snippets from the different articles you are reading, along with the article citation in MLA or APA formats. Snippets can then be exported to Google Docs for easy sharing.

Interactive Map Viewer displays supplementary geospatial data from Elsevier online articles as an interactive map.

You will need to sign up for a personal account with ScienceDirect and then you can add the apps to your profile. There are currently 90 apps available - see the gallery of available apps here
http://www.applications.sciverse.com/action/gallery?currentSelection=product&productFilter=ScienceDirect