Elsevier Announces Partnership with FAST to Deliver Topic Pages for Scientific Communication on the Web

Elsevier, a world-leading scientific, technical and medical (STM) publisher, today announced a partnership with Fast Search & Transfer (FAST™) to create a new free online resource for the scientific community. Hosted on Scirus, Elsevier’s free search engine for scientific information, Topic Pages will pull together a variety of highly relevant academic information on a particular scientific topic of interest to researchers on a single web page. The Topic Pages will utilize intelligent search capabilities from the FAST Enterprise Search Platform (ESP).

“We are pleased that FAST is working with us on this exciting project that will offer an easy, and flexible communication and collaboration tool for scientists around the world,” said Joris van Rossum, head of Scirus. “FAST’s search capabilities, coupled with Elsevier’s network of editors, authors and online scientific resources will provide researchers a very useful resource for a specified topic.”

Topic Pages are an innovative way for scientists to communicate in an informal and flexible way. Each Topic Page will provide researchers with summaries of a specific topic written by an authority in the particular subject area, with direct links to relevant scholarly papers, abstracts and citations, supplemented with relevant websites and other online resources from Scirus. In the initial phase, authors for Topic Pages are invited through an editorial process facilitated through Elsevier publishing staff. As more pages are developed, additional authoring options will be considered.

“By combining information retrieval and analysis, FAST ESP will help Topic Pages provide researchers with faster and more accurate results, leading to higher productivity, and faster discovery times,” said Sven Arne Gylterud, senior vice president of products for FAST.

At the official Topic Page launch later this year, the functionality of the Topic Pages will allow scientists and researchers to alter the content and provide feedback, allowing each topic to be shaped by the suggestions made by the research community. Based on this community approach, Topic Pages might be expanded to include capabilities such as the ability for researchers to link to their bibliographies and comment on other researchers’ works. In addition, the Topic Pages will serve as a place to find peers, communicate with other scientists, upload and rate a wide variety of relevant sources and help to shape and influence the tools and information provided on the Topic Pages themselves.