The SSRN Blog

iSSRN, our free iPhone App, was released recently.  It provides instant access to the latest Social Science and Humanities research in the SSRN eLibrary from scholars around the world. iSSRN is available from Apple’s iTunes store.

iSSRN allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to search over 250,000 papers and read the full text of the papers directly on their device.

Note: This is an updated version of the previous iSSRN App and this version, not the previous one, will be updated in the future.

Geoff Bilder, CrossRef’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, and others discussed Trust during their CrossRef Annual Meeting presentations earlier this week and I’ll discuss more on this topic next week.  What I was most impressed with in Bilder’s talk was the list of new projects, such as TOI DOI (a DOI shortener).

I have often thought of CrossRef being a bit old school and it is great to see them sharing its cool new ideas.  Plus, they are making them available at the new CrossRef Labs.  Keep up the good work!

We recently expanded the Share functionality on the top of our abstract pages by adding Facebook and Twitter to the Digg, Delicious, and CiteULike options.  Our community asked for the ability to easily post or tweet about research that was important to them and has already created thousands of SSRN links on Facebook and Twitter.

This ease of linking and accessing content is beginning to create interesting opportunities.  Google* and Bing are continually adding features to enhance their results but it has become a cat and mouse game trying to provide the best, non-manipulated results.  We are starting to see a lot of interesting research regarding the use of social networks to provide recommendations using a “wisdom of friends” approach.  It makes a lot of sense to us.  When you think about it, don’t you value the recommendation of a trusted friend more than a search engine algorithm?

* I love the 40th Anniversary Sesame Street doodles this week, especially today’s Cookie Monster!

In 2008, SSRN released CiteReader and Reference Technology into their Beta labs. CiteReader captures references from the papers in the SSRN eLibrary. These references are then verified and linked to the cited papers in the eLibrary.

Currently, CiteReader and Reference Technology are accessible to all registered SSRN Users. Registration is free at SSRN’s User HeadQuarters. We hope to take this technology out of the Beta Lab and make it available to the entire public in 2010.

Since we introduced CiteReader and Reference technology into the Beta Lab last year, we have added over a million “Cited By” links to our already existing million links. To date, CiteReader has successfully:

If we captured and verified the references from a paper in the SSRN eLibrary, the Beta Lab Public abstract page will have a “References Tab” [References (#)] where # is the total number of references we have captured and verified on this paper. Click on the tab and the list of verified references for this paper will be listed.

CiteReader References and Citations Tabs

Similarly, if the paper has been cited by other papers in the SSRN eLibrary, there will be a second tab on the public abstract page - the “Citations Tab” [Citations (#)], where # is the total number of citations to this paper from other papers in the SSRN eLibrary.  Click on this tab, and the list of verified citations to this paper will be listed.

These two links allow SSRN users to easily examine the literature an author used to write a paper using the Reference Tab and to read new content that is citing the paper by using the Citations Tab. This quicker feedback on the use of scholarly content will definitely give scholars a trail to follow in their own research, and will perhaps even change the way we rate the use of new content in real time.

One of the biggest challenges in scholarly research today is wading through the growing mountain of content. We fully acknowledge there is an overabundance of information in scholarly research today and are working hard to make searching and sifting through the content contained in our eLibrary much easier. Since we received ~50,000 submissions last year, the SSRN Community needs a better interface to find research papers. After spending time thinking about different approaches to display large quantities of articles, we created the eLibrary Viewer.

The eLibrary Viewer places search results in the left hand column of the page. Each result displays hyper-linked title and authors, and the first few lines of the abstract. In addition, we included buttons to open the full abstract page in another window; view citations, references, and footnotes where available; add the abstract to a user’s MyBriefcase; and share, email, or download the paper. These features will allow readers to quickly review and share multiple articles without having to go back and forth between the results and the content pages. The eLibrary Viewer will reduce a researcher’s time reviewing articles. We hope you like it!

To use the new functionality, sign in to SSRN HQ and click on the Beta tab on the search page. Enter your criteria, click “Search” and then leave a comment telling us what you think of it.

Last month, we beta tested abstract “commenting” functionality on all abstracts in our Cognitive Science Network (CSN). With the initial success and positive feedback, we added the functionality to all abstracts in our Entrepreneurship Research and Policy Network (ERPN). This feature expands the possibilities and conversations based on scholarly research in the SSRN eLibrary. We will add commenting to all abstract pages later this year.

What’s next? - SSRN status updates or Super Poke - we don’t know but we are having fun.

Here is the latest announcement from SSRN:

Loyola University Chicago School of Law Joins LSN Research Paper Series

We are pleased to announce that Loyola University Chicago School of Law has started a Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series within the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN).

View Papers: http://www.ssrn.com/link/Loyola-U-PUB.html
Subscribe: http://hq.ssrn.com/jourInvite.cfm?link=Loyola-U-PUB
First Issue: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/sample_issues/1410172_CMBO.html

Founded in 1908, Loyola University Chicago School of Law is a community of engaged scholars and students inspired by the Jesuit tradition of academic excellence, intellectual openness, and a commitment to justice and the rule of law. The articles and papers in its Research Paper Series serve that tradition by contributing to a deeper understanding of law, legal institutions, and legal theory through faculty research and scholarship. (View full announcement)

Today’s post was originally going to be a quick one describing what we are doing with “social networking” and how to follow us.  It still includes instructions below, but I was reviewing my notes from Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody for my AACSB presentation last week and realized a couple of fairly obvious points.

First, as scholarly research has moved from a model of scarcity to one of information overabundance, content is no longer king.  The conversation that surrounds the content is king, along with the innovation that occurs because of the easier access. My simple definition of innovation is the ability to create new things by being exposed to a broader and deeper set of existing things.  Easier access to research and the conversation facilitates innovation.

Second, access needs to be based on each user’s perspective and personal style.  Just as we digest food in different ways (sitting at a quiet table for two, standing at the sink, etc.) at different times, we digest information in different ways at different times.  The key is to provide access in variety of ways that work for different people at different times.

Thus, we are expanding how you can get content from the SSRN eLibrary and will continue to expand as new and different means are created.  As Chris Anderson wrote, “Long tail businesses treat consumers as individuals, offering mass customization as an alternative to mass market fare.”  We aren’t there yet, but we are trying.

OK, back to the originally scheduled post …

With the growth of the Internet, social networking has expanded to allow a person to connect with another person in real time regardless of geography or to access information no matter where it is stored.  We see a plethora of opportunities for the SSRN Community using these tools.  As a first step, we have joined Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and will post updates, announcements, and other items to them regularly.

Here is how to find us:

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/SSRN

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-NY/SSRN/36086731835

LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=40866

Gregg Gordon (President/CEO) and Diane Baltadonis (Director of Sales & Marketing) will be attending the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) International Conference and Annual Meeting, April 26-28 in Orlando, FL.

Gregg will be presenting a session entitled “The Future of Scholarly Publishing”, which will offer insight into trends, technologies and advances associated with scholarly publishing.

Session: A2
Date: Monday, April 27, 2009
Time: 10:30am to 12pm

Description: The senior executives of two independent commercial publishing organizations present their views on the industry, its trends and likely direction. The scholarly publishing industry both mirrors, and shapes, the business school industry, and many of the same pressures and influences play on both — the relevance/rigor debate; role in wider society; globalization; impact of technology; and others. From different standpoints, the presenters will explain some of the workings of the industry, the factors which are shaping it, and what the future for publishers, scholars and students of business might hold.

Presenters: Gregory J. Gordon, president, Social Science Electronic Publishing, and John Peters, chief executive officer, Emerald Publishing

Additionally, Gregg and Diane will be available throughout the conference to speak with individuals regarding SSRN and its services. If you would like to set up a meeting, please email Diane_Baltadonis@ssrn.com.

Welcome to the SSRN Blog, the official blog of the Social Science Research Network.

Since its start in 1994, SSRN has grown significantly — we currently have 18 focused research networks, more than 200,000 papers in the eLibrary, and surpassed 25 million total downloads in December (the number is now more than 27 million). As we reached and surpassed several milestones, we realized that not everyone knows our history or has access to news about the latest updates or changes to the website. The SSRN Blog comes as a natural outcome of our desire to share information and keep the SSRN Community up to date. Hopefully, it will also enhance our already wonderful connections with our users.

The SSRN Blog will not be a broadcast vehicle. We want to engage you in an ongoing conversation. Readers will get updates regarding SSRN’s eLibrary and services, weekly “Top Ten” lists, and announcements of new networks, conferences, and presentations. Our posts will explore and share our perspective on issues such as Open Access, new publishing models and directions for scholarly research, and the technologies that affect us all. We will also be linking several articles and other blog posts in the “Media Mentions” section on the right side of the page.

We are very excited about launching the SSRN Blog, and I personally invite you to join us as we grow and expand the SSRN Community.

Thanks,
Gregg