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Profiles upgrade provides new functionality

February 12, 2009

Profiles, Harvard Catalyst’s social networking application, now gives investigators a new level of control over the information associated with their individual entries.

“One of the most frequent comments we have received in the feedback on the first version of Profiles was users wanted to have more control over their publication record,” said Griffin Weber, M.D., Ph.D., chief technology officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and lead architect of Profiles. “We are constantly striving to improve Profiles and our other applications, and we took this feedback to heart when developing this update.”

Profiles now provides greater control over publication information. “Previously, users could only add or remove publications one at a time, and were limited to those publications that had a PubMed unique identifier,” Weber noted. “We recognized that this was an onerous means of maintenance, and one that limited the scope of information that people could include in their entries.”

When editing their Profiles entries using the “Edit my Profile” link, users will now find that they have three options for maintaining their publication record:

1. By conducting a PubMed search from within Profiles and
   selecting those publications that truly belong to them,
2. By entering batches of PubMed unique identifiers, and
3. By filling out a form for other publications, such as
   books, conference presentations, or papers published in journals that PubMed does not
   cover.

The ability to perform PubMed searches and enter batches of PubMed unique identifiers allows users to add publications to their entries in bulk, as opposed to singly. Other changes include the creation of a persistent web address for each Profiles entry, making it easier for users to share their entries with their colleagues as well as other websites to reference an individual profile entry.

“The application still queries PubMed automatically on a regular basis to add new publications to users’ entries,” said Weber. “Over time, we hope to be able to add the ability to import publications from other publication databases as well.”

Users can remove publication citations from their entries one by one; at the same time, they can still add research narratives, photographs, and citations of awards and honors to their entries. And although Profiles is still limited to those users with appointments at Harvard Medical School or Harvard School of Dental Medicine, it will soon be expanded to include members of other Harvard faculties, such as Harvard School of Public Health, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

For more information: About Profiles