The CTSI Research Gateway is an initiative of the University of Pittsburgh's Clinical and Translational Science Institute to provide researchers and others with better ways to find experts, collaborators and resources at the Health Sciences Center. Research Gateway consists of a suite of tools that are designed to work together and simplify common activities of researchers at Pitt. Research Gateway currently comprises the following applications:
 Digital Vita is a research networking application that allows users to manage CV and NIH biosketch information, and to create and edit an online profile. It automatically imports data from external sources and propagates publications to co-authors. Version 2.1 of Digital Vita now allows users to build networks of colleagues they collaborate with as well as share CVs and biosketches. General information materials:
The concept and initial design of Digital Vita were developed by a team of masters students in human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. A 10-min. video illustrates the prototype:
In January 2011, we received an award for a project entitled "Digital Vita Documents for VIVO" from the VIVO Collaborative Research Projects Program to port document generation functions from Digital Vita to VIVO. A presentation about this project can be found here.
The following publications and poster presentations describe Digital Vita and the underlying research:
Publications
- Lee DH, Brusilovsky, Schleyer T. Recommending collaborators using social features and MeSH terms. ASIST 2011; 2011 Oct 9–13; New Orleans, LA. Forthcoming 2011.
- Schleyer T, Butler BS, Song M, Spallek H. Conceptualizing and advancing research networking systems. ACM T Comput-Hum Int. Forthcoming 2011.
- Lee DH, Schleyer T. MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations. AMIA Annu Symp Proc. 2010 Nov 13;2010:412-6.
- Schleyer T, Spallek H, Butler BS, Subramanian S, Weiss D, Poythress ML, Rattanathikum P, Mueller G. Requirements for expertise location systems in biomedical science and the Semantic Web. Proceedings of “Personal Identification and Collaborations: Knowledge Mediation and Extraction (PICKME)”, workshop at the International Semantic Web Conference, 2008.
- Spallek H, Schleyer T, Butler BS. Good partners are hard to find: the search for and selection of collaborators in the health sciences. Presented at: Project Management and User Engagement. Fourth IEEE International Conference on eSciene (eScience 2008); 2008 Dec 7-12; Indianapolis, IN. Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society; 2008 p. 462-7.
- Schleyer T, Spallek H, Butler BS, Subramanian S, Weiss D, Poythress ML, Rattanathikun P, Mueller G. Facebook for scientists: Requirements and services for optimizing how scientific collaborations are established. J Med Internet Res. 2008;10(3):e24.
Presentations
- Schleyer T, Spallek H, Butler B, Schmandt L. Digital Vita: The University of Pittsburgh's research networking system. Presented at: Fall 2011 Department of Biomedical Informatics Colloquium Series; 2011 Nov 18. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.
- Griffin W, Barnett W, Conlon M, Eichmann D, Kibbe W, Falk-Krzesinski H, Halaas M, Johnson L, Meeks E, Mitchell D, Schleyer TK, Stallings S, Warden M, Kahlon M. Distributed Interoperable Research Experts Collaboration Tool (DIRECT). Presented at: AMIA 2011 Annual Symposium; 2011 Oct 22 - 26. Washington, DC.
- Weber G, Barnett W, Conlon M, Eichmann D, Kibbe W, Falk-Krzesinski H, Halaas M, Johnson L, Meeks E, Mitchell D, Schleyer T, Stallings S, Warden M, Kahlon M, Members of the Clinical adn Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Research Networking Group. Direct2Experts - Connecting VIVO and other research networking products. Presented at: Second Annual VIVO National Conference; 2010 Aug 24-26; Washington, DC.
- Schleyer T, Butler B, Song M, Spallek H. The dawn of research networking: A proposed research agenda. Presented at: Second Annual VIVO National Conference; 2010 Aug 24-26; Washington, DC.
- Schleyer T, Mitchell S, Shen S, Shirey W, Corson-Rikert J, Lowe B, Becich M, Schmandt L. (Trans)planting Digital Vita: Document generation for VIVO. Presented at: Second Annual VIVO National Conference; 2010 Aug 24-26; Washington, DC.
- Borromeo CD, Schleyer TK, Becich, MJ, Hochheiser HS. Finding collaborators: Towards interactive tools for research social networks. Poster presented at: Second Annual VIVO National Conference; 2010 Aug 24-26; Washington, DC.
- Schleyer T, Spallek H, Butler B, Schmandt L. Digital Vita: research networking in the context of CV management. Presented at: Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University; 2011 May 13; Philadelphia, PA. (Panopto presentation)
- Schleyer T, Spallek H, Song M, Butler B, Dziabiak M, Shirey W, Milnes J. CV management in Digital Vita: a formative evaluation. Poster presented at: 2010 CTSA Informatics Key Function Committee All-Hands Meeting; 2010 Oct 13-15; Bethesda, MD.
- Schleyer T, Shirey W, Borromeo C. Comparison of Digital Vita and VIVO data models. Poster presented at: VIVO National Conference; 2010 Aug 12-13; New York, NY.
- Schlyer T, Spallek H, Butler B, Detlefsen E. Facebook for scientists: optimizing how scientific collaborations are established. Presented at: School of Health Information Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; 2010 Feb 10; Houston, TX.
- Schleyer T, Spallek H, Butler B, Schmandt L. Digital Vita: Facebook for scientists. Poster presented at: 2009 CTSA Informatics Key Functions Committee All-Hands Meeting; 2009 Oct 28-29; Bethesda, MD.
 Experts is a module that will provide powerful search and retrieval capabilities for Digital Vita profiles to users inside and outside of the University of Pittsburgh. Experts will facilitate flexible searching of all biomedical researchers at Pitt, allow detailed comparisons, and provide easy-to-digest and comprehensive information about individual researchers. We are currently developing the design specifications for Experts.
 Tools was envisioned as a comprehensive directory of resources for biomedical research at Pitt, such as core facilities, laboratories, equipment and services. The concept of Tools is being implemented by a group headed by Dr. Michael Becich, Chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Pitt.
At the beginning of the Research Gateway project, we intended to develop the University of Pittsburgh's Faculty Research Interests Project (FRIP; see http://frip.health.pitt.edu) further through a project called FRIP+. The new version of FRIP was intended to provide expertise location services in a more decision support-oriented interface. The following documents provide details about the project:
FRIP Evaluation Research Report (3/14/2008)
FRIP+ prototype (1.67 MB)
FRIP+ prototype instructions
However, because of implementation difficulties and design challenges, this effort has not been further pursued as a separate project. Instead, selected features are being integrated with the Experts project.
For more information about the Research Gateway project, please contact the project director, Dr. Titus Schleyer.
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