Springer released a new (free!) tool to map research publishing trends. It uses Google maps (like everyone else) to geographically display search results, but also breaks them down according to several other facets. I like the faceted search and display capabilities, including subject, author, institution, journal and country. It seems like a pretty powerful breakdown.
I am especially intrigued by the ability to restrict results to open access articles only. This means that I can look at the trend of open access publishing in a certain field over time and according to geography. Of course, it only indexes Springer journals, so this isn't a comprehensive look at open access publishing, but it is interesting nonetheless. We've been discussing open access pros and cons (I'm a pro-person myself) in class lately and this caught my attention.
So I did a quick search on "breast cancer" from Jan 1, 2009, to today, Feb. 18, 2009, restricted to the US (so I can actually zoom in on the map a little). I got 80 articles with 390 authors geographically pinpointed on the map. The little people on the map below are color-coded, red meaning more people are represented, yellow indicating fewer. When you zoom in, the people explode (!) into more people, showing more specific geographic locations.
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And this is the same search restricted to open access articles only. Only 2 articles (hey, it's only February), including 11 authors from six institutions. And they link directly to the articles in the search results, of course. Pretty nice functionality.
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Hmm...fun tool. Also nice for highlighting all of your research institution's collaborations. Which gives me another idea...
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