‘SciVee’ Science Site Launches the Research Community’s First ‘Postercast’ Capability

SciVee, a Web 2.0 resource dedicated to the dissemination of scientific research and science-specific research networking, is adding an innovative new video feature called a “Postercast” that enables students and professional researchers alike to upload their poster and related video to create a synchronized presentation on the SciVee website. The Postercast is searchable across the web and lets the user participate in a virtual research community to promote broader collaboration than previously possible.

SciVee (http://www.scivee.tv/) has been used by hundreds of thousands of students and professional scientists as a means of learning and sharing their research through “Pubcasts” which supplement peer-reviewed journal articles; communities, which stimulate discussion and collaboration; and science-related videos ranging from popular science to conference keynote lectures.

“SciVee is a very creative example of the potential for cyberinfrastructure, or digital information and communication technologies, to add a powerful new communication and sharing dimension to science,” said Steve Meacham, Senior Science and Technology Advisor for the National Science Foundation’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure.

The SciVee site features an on-line synchronization studio technology that permits researchers or authors to zoom in and highlight specific areas of their posters. This feature allows viewers to see specific sections of the poster as they listen to the video narration so viewers can see specific sections in more detail. The synchronization studio may also be used to sequence a series of slides to appear in concert with the video timeline.

“Posters are the lingua franca for conveying new science, but only appear at a conference for a day or two,” said SciVee co-founder Philip E. Bourne, Distinguished Scientist with SDSC and a professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UCSD. “Postercasts now make that information easily accessible and persistent for a worldwide audience.”

Postercasts take advantage of patent-pending, innovative technology developed by SciVee that links images of text-based media with video presentations. The first Postercasts are already available on the SciVee website in the Experimental Biology 2008 Poster Session Videos community at: http://www.scivee.tv/postercasts.

In addition to researchers gaining exposure for their work through Pubcasts, Postercasts, and science videos, SciVee lets anyone create and join specialized open or private virtual communities that focus on a specific research topic or field of interest to facilitate discussion and networking among members. These communities also provide a forum for members to comment and rate SciVee Pubcasts, Postercasts, and science videos.

“SciVee has been very successful in its goal to build a community around a particular area of research, thereby creating a free flow of ideas across generations as well as different professional levels,” said co-founder Leo M. Chalupa, Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Neurobiology at UC Davis.

In addition, SciVee Postercasts are automatically linked to a member’s professional profile to support the process of career advancement or applications for grants.

About SciVee
SciVee provides community resources for researchers of all levels to share their science, connect with their peers, and respond to scientific data. Researchers can see and hear scientists describe their scientific research, join specific interest communities, participate in scientific discussions, and create a comprehensive multimedia representation of their own research. SciVee was launched in late 2007 as a joint initiative between the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Public Library of Science (PLoS) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at the University of California, San Diego.
About SDSC
As an organized research unit of UC San Diego, SDSC is a national leader in creating and providing cyberinfrastructure for data-intensive research. Cyberinfrastructure refers to an accessible and integrated network of computer-based resources and expertise, focused on accelerating scientific inquiry and discovery. SDSC is a founding member of the national TeraGrid, which recently reached a combined compute capability equal to one petaflop (10^15 calculations per second).