Showcasing related publications

A key goal of Octopus is to leverage the inherently interconnected nature of research. Octopus allows researchers to attach their publications to others’ work to show derivation, and to branch out in new directions. But what about work that is related but not directly connected? There is value in linking these, providing useful content to readers, and making authors aware of others who are doing similar work, but so far this is not something that Octopus has been able to showcase.

The ‘related publications’ feature is our solution to this problem. With this feature, a new area on the publication page displays a list of relevant publications to the one currently being viewed. This makes it easier for readers to browse similar materials, and for authors to identify potential collaborators for future work.

Community moderated

To minimise the chance of authors gaming the system, or confusion about why their publication is or is not being shown, we avoid recommendation algorithms or ranking systems that are not transparent. Instead, we allow the community to decide how a publication should be received and displayed.

In keeping with this approach, the ‘related publications’ feature does not make suggestions of its own. Instead, related publications are identified by the readers, and their relevance is assessed by the community.

How it works

Whilst viewing a publication, if a reader is aware of another relevant publication, they can use the ‘suggest a link’ option to recommend it to others. Once a related publication has been added, a link to it will be displayed on the publication page to other users, allowing them to click through for further reading.

To ensure accountability and high-quality links, other users can vote on the relevance of these suggestions. Unlike our red flagging and peer review features, which are designed to focus on the quality of a publication, voting on these links is purely a comment on how relevant the publications are to each-other.

To avoid new links getting buried under existing, more established links, we have added two sections to the related publications area. The first lists recently added links, whilst the second is for the highest voted links, showcasing the most relevant publications according to the community,.

For now, the feature only allows publications of the same type to be suggested. For example, a method can be suggested as being related to another method, but not to a hypothesis. Depending on feedback from the community, we may expand this to link different publication types where there’s common ground.

If you’d like to provide feedback on this new feature, please send an email to help@jisc.ac.uk