Microsoft leaders at the annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit outlined their vision for how Microsoft Corp. and academics can collaborate on research projects to develop technological breakthroughs that will define computing and scientific research in the years ahead. A set of free software tools aimed at allowing researchers to seamlessly publish, preserve, and share data throughout the entire scholarly communication life cycle are being developed.
Microsoft researchers partnered with academia throughout the development of these tools to obtain input on the application of technology to the needs of the academic community, while Microsoft product groups submitted feedback on how the company's technology could optimally address the entire research process. The collective efforts resulted in the first wave of many tools designed to support academics across the scholarly communication life cycle.
The following tools, as well as many others, are freely available now at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/tc/scholarly_communication.mspx:
The Article Authoring Add-in for Word 2007 enables metadata to be captured at the authoring stage to preserve document structure and semantic information throughout the publishing process, which is essential for enabling search, discovery and analysis in subsequent stages of the life cycle. The Creative Commons Add-in for Office 2007 allows authors to embed Creative Commons licenses directly into an Office document (Word, Excel or PowerPoint) by linking to the Creative Commons site via a Web service.
The e-Journal Service offering provides a hosted, full-service solution that facilitates easy self-publishing of online-only journals to facilitate the availability of conference proceedings and small and mediumsized journals.
The Research Output Repository Platform helps capture and leverage semantic relationships among academic objects - such as papers, lectures, presentations and video - to greatly facilitate access to these items in exciting new ways.
The Research Information Centre, in close partnership with the British Library, is a collaborative workspace hosted via Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and will allow researchers to collaborate throughout the entire research project workflow, from seeking research funding to searching and collecting information, as well as managing data, papers and other research objects throughout the research process.
Information about the annual Microsoft Research Faculty Summit is available at http://www.research.microsoft.com/workshops/FS2008 and Microsoft Research information can be found at http://www.research.microsoft.com.
Source: PR Newswire Press release from Microsoft Corp. July 28, 2008.