STM publisher Elsevier, Netherlands, has announced the addition of new intuitive reference and navigational features to its online STM platform, ScienceDirect. With this upgrade researchers are expected to experience a boost in productivity and a faster and more seamless research process. The new features are part of Elsevier's ongoing efforts to improve researcher workflows and help them to conduct their research in a faster, more productive manner.
Developed in cooperation with researchers, the new features are seen to deliver clearer results with fewer clicks. Additionally, researcher comments and ratings from 2collab, Elsevier's free web-based collaborative platform, will be integrated with the articles in ScienceDirect.
Researchers seek to evaluate the relevance of an article without reading through it, and they do so by using the article abstract, figures/graphs and references. To speed up this process, ScienceDirect now offers preview tabs - on the results page or table of contents page - that facilitate one-click access to these components, without the page reloading. This is expected to enable a seamless and simple research process. An article toolbox also improves navigation by bringing together all of the article-related functionality, including "Cited By" and "E-mail Article", into one easy-to-find location.
Researchers can now view reference information when their cursor moves over a reference marker in the body of an article. The information shown includes links to the referenced articles (if available). Previously, reference information was only available at the foot of the article page. In addition, a new navigation pane allows researchers to search within results and refine results using four filters such as "content type", "source title", "date" and "topics". By enabling filtering users can refine their search results without having to return to the search form.
ScienceDirect will also make it easier for researchers to share and evaluate papers with peers and colleagues by using Elsevier's online collaboration platform, 2collab (www.2collab.com). Subject to a phased release over the coming months, the integration of 2collab will let researchers easily share, discuss and rate article bookmarks to articles and organise articles by adding tags. The comments, ratings and tags that researchers add to articles will be included on each article page in ScienceDirect.
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