Overview on the IOM links page

Kyle Freese

2/10/2011

Archiving human achievement has been a characteristic of civilization for thousands of years. The Royal Library of Alexandria, for example, documented and catalogued information as early as the 3000 B.C.; although the original library no longer stands, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina acts as a commemoration of the innovative work started some 5,000 years ago. Tracking the history of science using electronic resources and databases is an innovative endeavor. Exploiting the popularity of PowerPoint lectures and their wide availability on the world wide web is one way in which this task may be approached.

As the team members of Supercourse have demonstrated, compiling a list of lectures in a single, easily accessible database proved to be a challenging, noteworthy task. Starting with the Institute of Medicine (IOM) members from years 1994 to 2010, a Google search was used to compile a year-by-year list of PowerPoint lectures that were attributed to each corresponding member. This initial list included links to lectures that cited each member as the primary or coauthor, members of committees, and general citations within the slides. In order to further condense and edit this first list, each lecture was examined to determine the level of contribution by each IOM member. First, the “quick view” HTML link was explored to test its proper function. Many times, if the member was the primary author, it was easily determined through this process. If the “quick link” did not provide enough information, or did not show the IOM member as the primary author, the PowerPoint lecture was downloaded using the primary link. Once downloaded, each lecture was examined to determine whether the member listed was: 1) primary author, 2) coauthor, or 3) cited as an outside source. Using the tools available through Microsoft PowerPoint, each author that was mentioned as an outside source could be pinpointed to individual slides. If the member was one of four or less coauthors, they were listed alongside the other contributors. If there were more than four authors listed (as in a committee or such), this distinction was made note of. If the author listed the member as a supplementary source, this was made note of as “cited on slide X”. After each IOM member class list was edited, a final list was created and posted on the Supercourse website at (http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/Science/iommembers.htm).

The Institute of Medicine “members are selected for their excellence and professional achievement in a field relevant to the IOM's mission and for their willingness to participate actively in its work. These individuals represent not only the health care professions but also the natural, social, and behavioral sciences, as well as law, administration, engineering, and the humanities.” (IOM, 2010). While any scientific population could have been chosen for the first stage in the archiving process, selecting members from this institution provides several benefits.

First, IOM members are recognized as leaders in their fields. They are respected by their peers and others within the scientific community. As found by this project, their ideas and research are widely utilized to add credibility to additional investigations.

Second, since these individuals are considered experts in their respective fields, their presented lectures may show trends that are representative of the field as a whole. As mentioned, the IOM members have been recognized by a trusted, reputable organization as individuals who contribute meaningful information. These contributions may provide a snapshot of knowledge of the time. For example, lectures by 1999 IOM members may represent the general knowledge accepted at that particular time in the larger scientific community. By organizing and analyzing the lectures of a particular time, we may be able to extract trends with greater ease than attempting to catalogue the entirety of scientific achievement for each year.

Third, creating a database that includes lectures by “guaranteed” sources may provide a source for individuals searching for the most accurate, notable information without the trouble of exhaustively searching dozens of databases for relevant information. For example, a future research study may investigate a topic in which an IOM member is considered an expert. These investigators would access this cite, search by year for that particular member, and find a complete set of PowerPoint lectures by that IOM member. This process makes researching and citing much easier, not to mention quicker.

Fourth, while still in its infancy, this site may utilize the published knowledge of these members to provide trends of general scientific progress. Common themes may be discovered between disciplines, which would contribute general information of similarities among leaders of science.

As demonstrated, archiving has many meaningful uses, and with its proper application, can be used in a variety of settings with a variety of methods. Supercourse may be used as a database, a trend-generator, and a source of general information. Although speculative, perhaps when combined with lectures by Nobel Prize recipients and the National Academy of Sciences members, this complete IOM member lecture database can be used to map common themes, and models may be developed which may lead us to predict scientific trends of the future.

For more information about the evolution of powerpoint lectures, please visit http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec8301/index.htm

For more lectures from Institute of Medicine members, please visit http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/iom.htm