[15] Open Knowledge Maps: a visual interface to the world's scientific knowledge

Abstract: Getting an overview of a research field and being able to identify a set of relevant findings pertaining to one’s information need are prerequisites for research, evidence-based practice and self-directed learning alike. Yet, the tools for exploring and discovering scientific content are seriously lacking. With traditional, list-based search engines, users have to examine articles and their relationships by hand, which is a time-consuming process. Researchers have a community of peers and librarians who support them in this task. People outside academia, however, are usually on their own, and therefore often lost. This is true for policy makers looking to optimize decision-making by using evidence from relevant research, as well as patients who would like to learn about the newest findings on their illness. Open Knowledge Maps is an attempt to solve these challenges by providing an open exploration and discovery system that leverages the emerging digital open science ecosystem. Instead of lists, we propose to use knowledge maps. Knowledge maps provide an instant overview of a field by showing the main areas of the field at a glance, and papers related to each area. This makes it possible to easily identify useful, pertinent information. We aim to provide a large-scale, web-based system of open, interactive and interlinked knowledge maps for every research topic, every field and every discipline. This system will enable users to not only get an overview of a field and identify relevant concepts, but also to discover trends, recognize important researchers, and to understand connections between fields. Over the past year, we have been developing the system as a group of volunteers and have released the results on our website http://openknowledgemaps.org. With the existing service, users can create a knowledge map for a topic of their choice based on either PubMed or the Directory of Open Access Journals. Our software retrieves the 100 most relevant results for a topic and creates a knowledge map based on textual similarity between the records. The map is intended to give users a head start in their literature research. With this service, we have created a lot of excitement and enthusiasm in the community. Our user base has quickly grown: in November 2016 alone, we recorded over 44,000 visits to the site, and more than 25,000 maps have been created on the site to date. Open Knowledge Maps has become an international collaboration with team members, advisors and partners from all over the world. In the future, we want to turn discovery into an open and collaborative process. Most people are currently tackling discovery on their own – and therefore repeat the same process over and over again. By sharing the results of our discoveries, we can save valuable time and build on top of each other’s’ knowledge; for example, researchers and medical librarians can collaboratively map the newest research on a certain disease and openly share result of their efforts for the benefit of evidence-based practice and patients affected by this disease