Did you know? - Scopus RSS feeds lead to increased usage

Focus on NJIT

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is an efficient way to distribute content via the Web. Jim Robertson, Director of University Web Services at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), recognized that an RSS feed broadcasting information from Scopus could be an extremely effective way for users throughout the university community to be notified automatically of new information, in their fields of interest, as soon as it was published.

Jim recalls, “It all began when our Provost was planning a Research Day to highlight student-based research. The Library was asked to collect citations of students' publications co-authored with our faculty to show the range of work being done at NJIT. Scopus was the logical place to start. Working with Haymwantee Singh, Reference Librarian at NJIT, it was relatively simple using the Author Identifier tool and author affiliation data on Scopus. With just a little coding to display the results on a website, we were able to provide a complete list of NJIT student publications.” Jim realized that an RSS feed, pulling its data from user-defined searches, might be an improvement over custom programming. The results were impressive and student, faculty and administrative response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic.

“Scopus has been a true collaboration with librarians and the scientific community right from the beginning, and we recognized immediately that this was great idea coming from one of our development partners. The capability to set up RSS feeds right from within Scopus without any additional programming would be a valuable feature to offer our Scopus customers,” according to Scopus Product Manager, Thijs Willems. “I’m pleased to say that this functionality is now available on Scopus and can be implemented at both the institutional and individual user levels.”

One of the advantages of RSS feeds is that the user is notified only when new information is available. Document and citation searches, once set up, will automatically send the latest published articles to the user without further intervention. These feeds can be incorporated into a website using a Scopus HTML feed, a handy tool that converts basic RSS into HTML. They can even be combined with a blog, or incorporated in a “mash-up” of various web services in a unique way.

“With the open-XML standard, we can really do a lot with the data downstream.” Jim continues, “This empowers our users. We can create a customized environment, drawing information from many sources that leverage the power of the network for our students and researchers. This is really cutting-edge stuff.”

To promote research and researchers at your institution on your own website, just follow 5 basic steps!

You can set up HTML feeds to your website from Scopus and show visitors your most recently published articles or display citation counts for published articles originating from your institution. Simply visit our website at http://info.scopus.com/htmlfeeds/ and follow the 5 basic steps. All the work is done for you, as automatic feeds send the latest results to your website. Scopus content is refreshed every day.