Elsevier has announced a partnership with Fast Search & Transfer (FAST) to create a new free online resource for the scientific community. Hosted on Scirus, Topic Pages will pull together a variety of relevant academic information on a particular scientific topic of interest to researchers on a single web page. The Topic Pages will utilize search capabilities from the FAST Enterprise Search Platform (ESP). Topic Pages are designed for scientists to communicate. Each Topic Page will provide researchers with summaries of a specific topic written by an authority in the particular subject area, with direct links to relevant scholarly papers, abstracts and citations, supplemented with relevant websites, and other online resources from Scirus. In the initial phase, authors for Topic Pages are invited through an editorial process facilitated through Elsevier publishing staff. As more pages are developed, additional authoring options will be considered.

The functionality of the Topic Pages has been designed to allow scientists and researchers to alter the content and provide feedback, allowing each topic to be shaped by the suggestions made by the research community. Based on this community approach, Topic Pages might be expanded to include capabilities such as the ability for researchers to link to their bibliographies and comment on other researchers’ works. The Topic Pages is designed to serve as a place to find peers, communicate with other scientists, upload and rate relevant sources, and help shape and influence the tools and information provided on the Topic Pages themselves.

(www.scirus.com; www.fastsearch.com; www.info.scopus.com; www.elsevier.com; www.reedelsevier.com)

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