Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Scholarly recommender service -- try it out!

The University of Wisconsin System libraries are running a trial of a new service that provides researchers with suggestions based on their area of interest. This will aid you in finding additional relevant articles. It is similar to the “More Like This” or “If You Liked This, You’ll Also Like …” services on consumer web sites such as Amazon, but it is based on article usage of thousands of people at research institutions around the world.

This trial runs through March 2010.

To try the service, simply use the FIND IT button as usual and look for the "Users interested in this article also expressed an interest in the following" section.

Example:



Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find this service?

Perform a search via our Quick Search or a database and find an article relevant to your research. Then click on the Find It! button to see if your library has access to the article.
To see recommendations, scroll down to the section labeled “Users interested in this article also expressed an interest in the following." You will find additional articles that may be of interest, based on the usage of other researchers that looked at the original article. You can click on the buttons to the right of the citations to see if we have access to the additional articles.


What if nothing is recommended?

The recommendations section will not always show up. This is still a relatively new service and not every article will have recommendations.

What about my privacy?

The recommendation engine is powered by anonymous usage data from people using the Find It! system at other participating libraries. For our trial subscription, UWEC clickthrough data is not sent to the software vendor.

How do I provide feedback?
If you've used the service, please provide feedback via the following system-wide survey.

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