Octopus Features
- Front Page – main function is to find publications.
Visually arresting and clutter-free (I like sci-hub!). Not too corporate (so not the ‘out of a box’ website look), but professional enough to look trustworthy.
Two ways to find what you want:
- Text search options:
- All text
- Text of all Problems/Hypotheses/Methods/Data/Analyses/Interpretations/Applications individually
- Text of titles only of above
- Visual search: needs a representation of the information cloud (clustered by AI), zoomable, so that you can go in and in until you find what you want. [Question: what does the transition between the visual representation of chains of publications into viewing an individual publication look like? What does OneZoom do?)
Language selection tool needed – will determine the language the site displays in and accepts as text inputs and should be on all pages of the site.
Log in needed – should also be on all pages of the site.
‘About’ and ‘Legal’ sections required on all pages of the site.
- An individual publication page – main function is to read it, but secondary function is to add a publication attached to it.
Needs to be really clear what users can do on this page. There are a lot of options and so it mustn’t get too cluttered, but also things can’t be too hidden.
It should be clear:
- what the Problem is at the top of the chain the publication is part of (title of problem displayed)
- Expandable (?) links to all other levels of the chain surrounding the publication
- This publication (Title, authors, date, content, authors’ horizontal links) and alternatives to this publication at the same level (eg. other hypotheses associated with the same problem).
- Ratings of this publication
- If the publication has been red-flagged the whole page must be pink and the text paled out
- Reviews of this publication
- Horizontal links added by other readers
- Previous versions of this publication (as ‘tabs’?)
- DOI
- Copyright designation
- Gold flag for ‘funding available’
- White flag for ‘funding required’
Users must be able to:
- Change language
- Log in
- Add rating of this publication or red/grey flag it (when logged in)
- Add a ‘gold flag’ and URL for funding available (when logged in)
- Add a publication (a review or a linked publication of the next level down, eg. a method attached to this hypothesis) (when logged in)
- Add a horizontal link between this publication and another
- Print this publication (alone, or with the publications that it is linked to above)
- Click on a review to bring it to a full screen publication
- Expand sections (?) to see linked publications higher or lower in the chain (ranked by highest rated, newest, same authors?)
- Click on ‘horizontal links’ and references within a publication
- Click on an author’s name to go to their individual page (author’s names displayed as initials and family name to avoid unconscious gender bias)
- Click on the ‘funding available’ flag to go to the funder’s page
- Writing a publication
This is likely to use PubSweet or PubPub or similar text editing (which allow insertion of formatting, tables, graphics, inline links and equations etc).
Different publication types will need a different interface: Data in particular will be rather different.
Each will have fields for:
- Title
- Authors’ ORCIDs (ability to add as many as required) and options for author order: 'as listed', 'alphabetical' or 'randomise'). Option for a collaboration name (which will link to a page listing the collaboration members as well as the usual metrics etc.)
- Text
- Horizontal links
- Funding declaration (split into salary and research expenses)
- Author contributions (where there is more than one author)
- Acknowledgements
- A white flag option for ‘funding requested for work to reach next stage’ (for final stage, real-world application, this should change to ‘funding requested for implementation’)
- Choice of copyright (CC BY-SA or CC BY-NC-SA) with info on each available
Hypotheses/Methods will have an extra tick-box for:
- Data has not yet been collected at the point of publication
Methods should have an option to use Protocols.io [can it be embedded, rather than linking out to it and back in again?] and should remind people that a full method should include details of any statistical analysis required.
Methods should also have fields for ‘trials registry number’ and ‘URL’
Data will need a field for ‘Ethical permission granted by (in the case of animal or human participants)’ along with a file upload for the ethical permission.
Data will also need a field for “URL/DOI of raw data” (with ability to add more than one)
Analysis will need a field for “URL/DOI of code used” (with ability to add more than one)
At the top will need to be a link to ‘guide for authors’ giving information relevant to that publication type on formatting rules – taken from the EQUATOR guidelines.
At the bottom there will need to be a ‘save’ and a ‘publish’ button. With single author publications the publish button will go immediately live (via a warning ‘are you sure you want to publish now?’) With multi-author publications the ‘publish’ button will need to be different, in order to send to other authors for agreement first. For the last author to approve it will be a full ‘publish’ button (and be clear that it is!)
- Rating/Flagging a publication
Each publication type will need a different set of pre-set categories for rating. I suggest we try for (max) three for each. Probably each will be something like:
Problems: Clearly written and well defined; Original; Important.
Hypotheses: Clearly written and well defined; Original; Scientifically valid.
Methods/Protocols: Clearly written/Detailed; Original; Valid/appropriate test of hypothesis.
Results/Data: High quality and annotated; Size of dataset; Followed protocol.
Analysis: Appropriate methodology; Clearly written/Detailed; Original.
Interpretation: Consistent with observations; Insightful/Original; Clearly written.
Real-world application: Clearly written/Detailed; Original/Important; Appropriate/Justified by evidence.
Reviews: Simply Thumbs up and Thumbs down (can prompt that a good review should be original, constructive and use appropriate language!)
Along with these ‘star’ ratings are ‘red flag’ options. Users can ‘red flag’ a publication on one or more of:
- Potential plagiarism
- Potential copyright issues
- Potential inappropriate or unlawful content
(the above for all publication types)
- Potential ethical issues
- Potential inappropriate use of statistics
(for methods downwards)
- Potential misrepresentation of findings
(for results/data downwards)
And ‘grey flag’ a publication for ‘Wrongly linked/located’
Both these flags will need a text box for further details
Or ‘gold flag’ to offer funding. This will need a text box for a URL to a page where people can find out more about the funding and the option of an expiry date for it. They will also be able to remove a gold flag if they themselves posted it.
- Author page
When viewed by anyone other than the author, an author’s page will show:
- Their name (no photos or will this give potential for discrimination/bias, and problems monitoring content)
- Current and past affiliations (CV-style but need to make sure this isn’t too long – expandable?)
- Conflicts of interest
- Metric diagram showing what sort of publications they have published (absolute or relative proportions?? Any kind of overall ratings??)
- List of publications by type and date, showing ratings (each of these a link)
- Some way to see who has rated/reviewed them and dates of those
- Some way to see who they have rated/reviewed (or a figure for overlap between the two??)
- If any publications have been grey/red flagged these will be marked, and there will be a link to the ‘dispute resolution’ page showing correspondence about it.
- If any publications have been gold flagged the flag will always remain against it (regardless of expiry date).
- Means of printing the page
When the author is viewing, this will also list publications pending with status (i.e. awaiting sign-off from co-authors), and if any of their publications have been flagged, these will have a link to take them to a ‘dispute resolution’ page where they will be able to see the issue raised and respond to it.