UC San Diego Research Intelligence Portal Launched
San Diego, May 18, 2009 -- After two years of beta testing in the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), the institute has launched the UC San Diego Research Intelligence Portal to help that university's researchers find new collaborators and funding opportunities.
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Developed by the UCSD division of Calit2, the UC San Diego portal (http://ric.ucsd.edu ) offers the latest in Web 2.0-type technologies. As of May 18, roughly 633 scientists, engineers and staff researchers from UC San Diego have profiles on the RI Portal, and more are being added every day.
The site’s tools offer information and insight that go well beyond what faculty members traditionally have relied upon to learn about available grants and collaborators for new research initiatives. Chief among those tools:
- My Research Profile, which provides basic information about the researcher and culls related information to develop a ‘tag cloud’ – a list of keywords or expressions – that reflects the scientist’s Research Strengths, which are used to match the researcher with collaborators or funding opportunities.
- Team Builder, an easy-to-use system for retrieving the profiles of potential collaborators, based on an automated search of their Research Strengths, and building lists of actual or potential team members to pursue a new project or grant proposal.
- Another tool, MyFunding, aggregates current funding opportunities from more than two dozen federal agencies, matching keywords in solicitations against keywords in the researcher’s profile.
Calit2 and the UCSD Office of Research Affairs are now working on enhancements to the portal, including new tools that will enable automated updating of researcher profiles, email notification of new grant opportunities as they happen, and tools for embedding some of the site’s functionality within other campus departmental or research unit Web sites.
UC San Diego researchers can access the RI Portal using their Single Sign-On username and password. If they are affiliated with one of the six organized research units that beta tested the system, individual profiles may already be in the system, but can be updated within minutes for maximum accuracy, by clicking on My Research Profile. UCSD faculty not already in the system can set up their own profiles by signing in (also using Single Sign-On), providing the basic information, and linking their profiles to personal or research Web sites or online publications of their work. The RI Portal then automatically scans the sites and/or publications for keywords to be included in that faculty member’s Research Strengths tag cloud.
“For scholars, research intelligence tools will help create partnerships, locate resources, and identify emerging areas of opportunity,” says UCSD Vice Chancellor of Research Arthur Ellis. “In short, these tools have the potential to create completely new paradigms for conducting research.”
Related Links
UC San Diego Research Intelligence Portal
Media Contacts
Doug Ramsey, 858-822-5825, dramsey@ucsd.edu