Jenkins Collaboratory Research
Patent Research
We are investigating methods of using patent information to outline analyses of technological evolution. In general, we use patent bibliographic and citation data as signposts that can provide a rapid orientation to the types of players and technological relationships within a field. Because quantitative analysis exposes the unique features of a set of patents, these techniques are a means of exploiting a vast repository of expert knowledge in order to create a self-organizing account of a history of innovation. After potential key aspects of a field have been discovered, we interview experts and conduct qualitative research to reconstruct the regulatory, business, and scientific realities of the time. This follow up investigation also helps to identify many of the domain and industry-specific artifacts that are present in patent data. Apart from clarifying the dynamics of different research areas, these methods will help us study the role of patents and government policies in encouraging or hindering innovation in various contexts.
Video Annotation System
The Video Annotation System (developed by Vincent Dorie) is a web-based video annotation tool that allows users to add commentary to streaming video by attaching text to a time-stamped location in the video. Because the commentary is structured as threads, this allows users to provide additional commentary on the same topic or start a new thread at the same location in the video. Applications for this tool range from research to teaching; currently, the video annotation system is being tested in the fields of biomedicine and nanotechnology to explore potential societal and ethical implications within laboratory work settings.
Online demo
Interactive Collaborative Timelines
The interactive collaborative timeline tool allows a community to construct multiple parallel timeline categories representing various structural dimensions significant to the development of a research field (or just about any subject of interest). Events can be added to the timeline by any member of the designated community together with any documentation related to the event, including original documentation to be stored in our database, or links to already existing documentation on the web. Links with commentary and accompanying documentation can be drawn between events considered closely connected. Events can be tagged by members of the community for importance. The entire structure can be filtered to reflect the views of individual contributors or groups of contributors. All levels of the timelines, including events, commentary, and links are supported by a forum-type threaded discussion that is fully searchable.
Current timeline features
- Infinite data-driven scalability that is limited only by the graphics capabilities of the client-side computers.
- Real-time content adding and editing by any member, from any location.
- Zoomable, movable category timelines.
- Search capabilities at every level of data analysis.
- Filtering of events based on data type.
- Connections between linked events.
- Threaded, email integrated discussion forums for all events and event connections.
- Flagging of important events by different members.
- Upload capability for new documents that can be linked into events and connections, event and connections descriptions, or event and connection discussion comments.
- Administrative control through integrated Flash-based GUI.
Interactive Web-Based Genealogy
This tool allows a community to document its lineage. Authorized community members can enter their own profiles, general information, and contact data. Publication information can be uploaded. Publication data in generally supported formats, such as PubMed, will be automatically linked to the corresponding abstract and full-text version of a document if it is made available for us to database. The "offspring" of the individual is generated in a scalable window to enable easy viewing of that individuals location in the family tree. Links to other members of the tree are generated for rapid navigation. The user can edit his/her entry and add ancestors and descendants. If the contact information for these individuals is included, they are contacted automatically by email and asked to contribute to the genealogy. Multiple options are provided for initiating threaded discussions, either about individuals themselves, or commentary on their positioning in the tree. The program also supports the capability to add "outsiders" (individuals who are not descendants of a member of the tree), and hence, it can support the representation of multiple genealogies. The genealogy tool has several reconfigurable features for personalized use, and it can be used to trace lineages of groups of individuals, organizations, products, concepts, and many other uses.
Currently supported features
- Infinite data-driven scalability that is limited only by the graphics capabilities of the client-side computers.
- Real-time content adding and editing by any member, from any location.
- Search capabilities at every level of data analysis.
- Filtering of genealogy profiles.
- Profiles containing: personal history timeline for each profile, personal lineage for each profile, uploadable publications/documents of any media type for each profile, threaded, email-integrated discussion forums for each.
- Advanced graphical data tools for analysis of different profiles.
- Upload capability for new documents that can be linked into levels discussion forums, personal history timelines for eac profile, or profile documents list. of genealogical data.
- Administrative control through integrated Flash-based GUI.