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The Collaborations Map
The main page of The Constellations Project website displays the Collaborations Map - a network associated with a particular PubMed search query. In the network, nodes represent authors and ties represent collaborations. The thicker the tie, the higher the number of articles two authors have published together. The bigger the node, the higher the number of articles that author has ever published.
The network is based on articles that were published in peer-reviewed journals that are indexed by PubMed. They can be a collection based on the work of one author, a collection returned by a PubMed search query, or both, depending on the information entered by the user in the search panel.
Step-by-Step Guide
Make an Initial Search
- Enter a search query and/or the name of an author (Queries follow PubMed search syntax)
- Enter the date range over which to search for collaborations
- Click the “Search” button
View/Hide Panels
- To toggle between viewing and hiding the Search, Articles, Funding, and Graph Edit panels, click the toggle buttons at the bottom left of the screen
Explore the Network (Limited to Desktop Site)
- Double-click a node to search for that author, leaving other search parameters the same
- Click on a node to see which papers the selected authors co-wrote. (Note: ensure that the Articles panel is displayed by using the toggle-buttons at bottom-left of the screen)
Change View
- Drag the background to move the entire network around the screen
- Drag nodes to change the shape of the network on the screen
- Scroll up and down to zoom in and out
- Make a selection of “Minimum Number of Collaborations” to filter ties according to the number of collaborations between authors displayed on the network graph. Relationships that involve fewer than the selected number of collaborations will be hidden
Contextual Information
The network graph is enriched with additional information on published articles, research funding, and author names (these are only available on the desktop version of the site). This information can be displayed or hidden by using the toggle buttons at the bottom left of the screen.
When article information is displayed, selecting different authors in the network graph limits information on articles to those articles that the selected author contributed to.
Duplicate Names
For some authors, not all articles are published under the same name. This most frequently happens because over time, academic journals have used different combinations of names and initials when recording authors. To avoid duplication of authors in the network graph, we assume that if two author names have the same first initial and family name, and if the author names are associated with at least one common collaborator, then the two names belong to the same author. In this situation, the two author names are automatically merged.
It is possible for the user to merge/unmerge nodes depending on her knowledge of the author names included in the search by opening the Appearance panel. You can do this by clicking on the gear icon at the bottom left of the screen.