Kudos, a start-up that provides tools and services to help researchers maximise the usage and impact of published articles, has announced the launch of a pilot programme in which it will partner with Taylor & Francis and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The need for Kudos arises from developments in global academic and research policies that will increasingly see evolving interpretations of 'impact' used to assess researcher excellence. Publishers already invest editorial, marketing and technological expertise in making research articles discoverable and useful, and now Kudos will further support this by helping leverage the expertise and connections of researchers themselves to further drive visibility and usage.
Kudos aims to provide a highly automated, scalable service to help researchers and their institutions measure, monitor and maximise the usage of and citations to their published articles, always linking back to the publishers' authoritative version. Kudos also aims to broaden access and enable 'strategic reading' by assisting authors in articulating the context of their published work, and enriching it with links to related resources.
Kudos' founders will continue in their current consulting roles at TBI Communications (Melinda Kenneway, Charlie Rapple) and David Sommer Consulting while steering the project's pilot phase. Kudos is seeking partners for its beta phase (from late 2013).
