This is the first in a series of reviews on social networks for scientists. The Science 2.0 revolution is upon us and a thorough understanding of the existing technologies that are propelling its movement is critical to its success.

My initial interest in Science 2.0 tools began five years ago when I was working in George Church’s lab at Harvard Medical School. Given the size of the lab and the vast number of collaborators, it was not uncommon to work on a research project with someone entirely online. Face time was frequently absent and emails were the predominant (if not only) form of communication.

As a young college student, I was also exposed to the multitude of ways Facebook had transformed the social landscape of university culture. It seemed only natural that this type of technology would soon be utilized to accelerate the research process. Yet, the movement only recently began to hold.

In the summer of 2008, there were merely a handful of social networking sites geared towards scientists. Over the past year, that number has increased dramatically, and there are now literally dozens of these types of networks. While most have had trouble acquiring and RETAINING active users, some have managed to survive in this increasingly competitive market.

As I delve into each of these sites, I urge you to post comments, critiques, and personal experiences. It is my hope that this will become a venue for discussion on the future of social networking for scientists and ideally help shape the future direction of this movement.

That said; let’s begin with a site I have used personally for the past year, ePernicus (epernicus.com).

Overview

ePernicus is a social network for scientists that combines the professional features of LinkedIN with many of the social aspects of Facebook and Twitter. One notable feature that is unique to ePernicus is its use of “BenchQ,” an area where users can post questions that are shared with the community.

Based on broad browsing of the site, it looks like there are currently between 5,000 and 10,000 users; however, it is hard to tell how many of them are ACTIVE users. Nevertheless, compared to other similar sites, ePernicus has been quite successful in acquiring users almost entirely through word-of-mouth advertising.

Profile

Upon joining the site, the first step users take is creating a profile. Though this is a straightforward task for anyone who is a frequent user of social networking sites, this can prove a bit troublesome for some scientists who have privacy concerns. I have talked to hundreds of scientists over the past few years about the possibility of research collaboration online via social networking technologies and the number one concern I hear time and time again is PRIVACY. So let’s begin by going through what exactly one is expected to make public, because this can actually end up being quite beneficial to some scientists.

Creating a profile with ePernicus is fairly straightforward, due in large part to the exceptionally simple user-interface the ePernicus team has created. Users are able to enter Current Positions, In-Progress and Awarded Degrees, Current and Past Research Advisors, Clinical Training, and Other Experiences in the Background section of the “Edit Profile” tab.

Under “Research” users then have the opportunity to enter a one-sentence research summary and a slightly longer one paragraph Research Description. Users can then upload a CV in .pdf or .doc format as well as a Photo, Honors, Publications, Posters & Presentations, Expertise, One Figure, Websites, and Docs. Most of these are fairly self-explanatory, but I would like to go into a bit of detail on a few aspects of this.

Instead of having to tediously enter all of their publications, a feature has been included to allow uploading of publications from PubMed using a basic search feature. This is particularly useful for researchers with a vast publication history. In the event that your publications do not appear in PubMed, there is also an option to manually enter your publication info.

Posters & Presentations allows users to upload .ppt files with tags for Title, Authors, Presented At, Details, Date, and Abstract. This can be particularly useful for young researchers interested in showcasing their material, as well as for scientists interested in giving a bit more info on their research than the one-paragraph research description allows.

Expertise is divided into three areas: Topics, Materials, and Methods. I am actually a big fan of this feature since it allows users to enter their AREAS of expertise based on their LEVEL of expertise as well (Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, Expert). This is particularly useful for searching for collaborators. Let’s say you are looking for someone who is really good at Western Blots. A quick search for “Western Blots” will show you the list of people who have that entered on their profile, and a quick scan of the profile will show you what that users level of expertise is. Granted, the user is self-reporting what their expertise level is, so it’s always a good idea to check their publication history before pursuing collaborations with them.

One Figure is another really cool feature unique to ePernicus. Nearly every scientist creates figures at some point in their career, and most have at least one figure that they are REALLY proud of. That one figure that manages to truly showcase their work, or maybe it’s that one figure that provided the evidence for a major breakthrough. Whatever the reason may be, ePernicus provides a means for showcasing it on your main profile page along with a brief caption. Is this a groundbreaking feature? No. But it is certainly very cool.

Finally, there is an option to upload Docs to your profile for other members to see. I see this as a way to facilitate collaboration between members, albeit a semi-indirect one. Maybe you have a paper that you want to share, or some figures that you would like other members to critique. With ePernicus, you can share it.

Next Step

Alright, for those of you who took the time to input all of that information into your profile, CONGRATS! For those of you who didn’t (note: I don’t really blame you, that is an awful lot of stuff to entire), worry not, you can still use the site; however, ePernicus is going to constantly remind you of your laziness via a profile progress bar that manages to make its way onto the sidebar of nearly all aspects of the site.

When you take a look at your profile, you will find a number of cool treats stick out. For starters, a genealogy will show up based on your research experience allowing a visual representation of your experience as well as a means to look at the profile of other members of your genealogy (as long as they are ePernicus users). Also, a “Network” sidebar will show up showing other members that are in your ”Research Network” (ex. contacts, members from similar institutions, and lab groups). This is a particularly nice feature since it facilitates the connection process between members of the site.

Now, for most fledgling scientists, gaining exposure and showing off your work and your track record can be a bit daunting. Obviously, making a lab website or personal website would provide a means for exposure, but there aren’t too many lab rats who have the time to do so. ePernicus provides a partial solution to the problem by allowing you to share your profile publically with a unique url (Mine can be found at www.epernicus.com/jbk) that will show up in Google search results. That way when you apply for your next job and your potential employer does the pre-requisite Google search for your name, they will find a professional looking profile along with your research interests and past experiences. Big plus!

Connect

Much like Facebook and LinkedIN, ePernicus provides a means for searching for other scientists and adding them as “friends.” As I mentioned before, the “Network” side panel in the profile is a great place to start adding “contacts” (the term ePernicus uses for “friends”). Other connection features include the ability to send private messages to other members, or mass messages to people in your contact list. Can’t find the person you are looking for? No worries! The “Invite” tab allows users to invite colleagues and friends from email contact lists, or friend lists on other social networks.

Collaborate

Although collaborative tools on ePernicus are limited (I would think of this more as a networking site than a collaboration site), there are certainly tools in place to provide a basic means of collaboration.

In particular, the “Groups” feature allows users to create public and private groups based on broad research interests or specific research projects. Within the group page is a tab showing group activity, a list of members, questions (basically a forum), and a Document Library (where users can upload documents visible only to members of the group). Despite being fairly barebones, small research projects could benefit from this type of collaborative tool, and research interest groups could benefit from being able to disseminate information on the topic area. However, given the clear lack of analysis tools and security features, I wouldn’t recommend uploading data sets or unpublished material anytime soon.

Stickiness

ePernicus provides some means of stickiness (methods of bringing people back to the site and actively participating on it).

For example, under the main “Dashboard” tab (the page that automatically loads when you log in) users can enter a question that can be showed publically or shown just to people in your specified networks. Messages posted by other users are shown in your “BenchQ” where you can go to browse questions asked by other users and reply to threads as you see fit.

“Dashboard” also allows members to update their status and share links in the same way one would update a Facebook or Twitter status. However, given the most recent status updates of those in my network (few and fair between, and most were posted many months ago), I would have to say that this feature is yet to catch on… Integration into Twitter and Facebook would be a huge step forward in this area and would certainly generate more interest in it. We’ll see what happens…

Conclusion

ePernicus is certainly one of the most polished scientist social networks out there, but there is certainly a lot more that can be done. While they have done a great job of networking scientists and attracting them to the site, generating a large ACTIVE user-base still proves troublesome (note: to their credit, this is something ALL social networking sites struggle with).

Unfortunately, means of collaboration are still too lacking to host truly useful research collaborations between colleagues, but technical challenges make that difficult for any group to accomplish. One thing I would love to see is a way for developers to make applications for the platform. For example, a programmer could create a data analysis application and share it across the network. Researchers could then add the application to their group and use it to analyze their uploaded data. Granted, for this to be truly effective, users would have to be ensured that their data is safe and secure (not an easy feat!).

Final Thoughts

If you are a scientist interested in Web 2.0 tools to help you connect and collaborate with colleagues or if you are merely looking for a way to publically display your professional profile, definitely check out this site.

Pros: Easy to use interface, clean design, BenchQ is a useful (though underused) tool for getting questions answered, great way to search for researchers based on expertise.

Cons: Group functionality lacking, still needs a better way to facilitate collaboration, user-base a bit too broad (might be better to focus on certain groups of scientists rather then “scientists” as a whole).