by Anatoliy Gruzd, School of Information Management

In the fall of 2011, as part of the Information Management Systems class that I teach at the School of Information Management, I introduced a new assignment based on Elsevier’s new platform called SciVerse (http://www.info.sciverse.com).

SciVerse is a web-based platform that allows academic and professional developers to design and build next generation applications to improve search and discovery functionalities of Elsevier’s large database of bibliographic records.

As part of this assignment, students worked in groups of three and four. They were tasked to create a conceptual design for a new SciVerse application. The goal was to introduce students to the latest web-based information systems in the field of Library and Information Science.

Later that semester, students had the choice to submit their completed conceptual design into an open competition called “SciVerse Web App Concept Design Competition”. (The competition was not part of the class.) To participate in this competition, students had to create a poster to showcase their design idea and present it during a poster session.

Based on the students’ feedback, the SciVerse Web App Challenge assignment was a smashing success. Many students expressed their high satisfaction with the positive learning experience. Second, as a result of this assignment and the event, Elsevier put together a case study based on this unique-to-Canada format, so that other universities can learn from and organize a similar event in the future.